Witches Coven
by Neale
Summary: This is AU (of course), this one is a stab at the theme of Lily doing something that allows her to return to help Harry, via a coven. It will use a lot of the same themes I usually do, HP/HG/LL and Dumbles, most of the Weasleys and a host of others will be bashed. I've changed the name back to what I originally planned because writing Druidesses Coven was irritating me.
1. The Coven

**Yeah, I know I told some people I'd be finishing off other stories next, but this idea got stuck in my head when I was trying to decide which story to get onto first, sorry. I'll try to get some chapters done on the other stories.  
**

**This will be AU (wow, me writing an AU story, who'da thunk it? ;^), based on a witches' coven bringing back Lily Potter and Alice Longbottom on Samhain seven years after Voldemort's attack on the Potters. Those of faint heart be warned, it _may_ involve rituals with Minerva McGonagall, Pomona Sprout, Augusta Longbottom, Griselda Marchbanks and Bathilda Bagshot dancing naked around a fire. Be afraid, be very afraid... ;^) **

**I also give warning that I will almost certainly make use of many of the same mechanisms as I've used in my other stories, as they're what makes sense to me, and the manipulative old (insert invective of choice here) and the other characters I love to hate will get the usual treatment. If you don't like that, please do yourselves and everyone else a favour and ignore this story. There is a slight change in the timeline in that Fudge became Minister in early Eighty Eight instead of Ninety here.  
**

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to anything from JKR's stories.**

In the last week of October, Nineteen Eighty Eight, nine women across Britain received letters that triggered their memories of the magical vow they'd all made, _and_ the fact that their memories relating to the subject of the vow had been taken from most of them by someone. Two were in a castle hidden from the non-magical world in Scotland, three were located in the West Country of England and the other four were in and around London, but they all knew why they needed to be in the cemetery in Godric's Hollow in the West Country for the ritual on Samhain. There was over a century's difference between the ages of the eldest and the youngest of these women but they were all regarded as being among the most powerful witches of their generations and were part of a witches' coven that had existed for over two thousand years. However the sender of the letters was the supposedly Squib… non-magical…. sister of a previous member of the coven who was killed with the rest of the magical McKinnon family in July Nineteen Eighty One.

While the Wizarding world refused to accept it though Jane Granger, as her name was now, had quite a lot of magic in her, she just couldn't use it the way normal witches and wizards did. However whatever this was only stopped her using wizarding magic, she had no problem using goblin or elf magic and was quite proficient with them. Jane's husband Roger was also classified as a Squib in the Wizarding world and his contribution apparently cancelled out whatever prevented Jane using wizarding magic, because their nine year old daughter was already a witch of quite notable power.

Minerva McGonagall and Pomona Sprout quietly made arrangements with their friend and colleague Filius Flitwick to cover for them and one of their students when they disappeared on what was referred to as Halloween at the magical school of Hogwarts in Scotland where they both worked and the other seven made their preparations as well. Pandora Lovegood would be bringing her effectively eight year old daughter Luna along with her to take part in the ritual, Jane would be bringing her nine year old daughter Hermione and Minerva and Pomona would be bringing along fifteen year old Nymphadora Tonks, the daughter of another coven member, Andromeda Tonks…. because the forms for the ritual they were to perform required a coven of thirteen witches. The three young witches were already showing quite a bit of magical power, which would hopefully be enhanced by their links to their mothers, and they knew that they'd need all the help they could get to draw Lily Potter's soul back whatever realm it had been sent to on Samhain seven years before by the protection ritual she'd used to save her son. They were also hoping that, as Alice Longbottom had been part of the vow made to bring Lily back, the ritual would manage to draw her mind back from wherever it had been banished by her torture at the hands of the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Junior a couple of weeks after Lily was supposedly killed.

* * *

On Samhain, the thirteen witches gathered at Bathilda Bagshot's cottage in Godric's Hollow. All they were wearing was robes which would be removed for the ritual, none of them really believed that they needed to be naked for the ritual, but being naked was written into the forms for the ritual and they were prepared to do anything they had to to make it work. As the time for the ritual grew near they proceeded to the cemetery beside the church, casting wards to hide the cemetery from anyone else and keep everyone else out before casting spells to remove the marble slab covering Lily's grave and the lid of her casket. They were heartened to see that there were no signs of corruption visible on Lily's body, because that hopefully confirmed that what Lily had done to protect Harry had gone as expected.

They formed a ring around Lily and her husband James' graves and conjured a magical fire on the slab that still covered James' grave to begin the ritual. Bathilda, as the coven's High Priestess, stood at the foot of Lily's grave. As Lily's best friend, Pandora stood to Bathilda's right, with her daughter Luna beside her, then Griselda Marchbanks, Jane and her daughter Hermione, Minerva, who was like a beloved aunt for Lily, Patricia Rakepick, Augusta Longbottom, Emmeline Vance, Pomona Sprout, and finally Andromeda Tonks and her daughter Nymphadora to Bathilda's left.

At what the formulas said was the optimal time, they began chanting and channelling their magic into Lily's body and they kept it up until she suddenly drew a gasping breath and sat up. It didn't take her long to recognise what had happened….. but then the fact that she was sitting in a casket and looking up at the naked members of her coven who had obviously just performed the ritual to bring her back _was_ rather a big clue…. and she burst into tears as there was no question who she'd been buried beside.

She wasn't happy about what she was seeing on the faces of the ones in front of her when she forced a question through her tears "Harry?", but Pandora knelt down to reassure her.

"He survived that night Lily, your protections worked, but the old bastard had him disappeared and wiped our memories of what happened. We're only now getting our memories back because they were triggered by the vow we made to bring you back. All the old bastard would tell Magical Britain is that Harry is safe with relatives in the Muggle world…."

That had Lily struggling to get out of her casket. "_Safe?_ The only relative Harry has in the Muggle world is my bitch of a so called sister and if he's with _her_ and that fat pig of a husband of her's he certainly isn't safe!"

She kept getting tangled up in her formal robes as she tried to climb out of the casket, until she spat out "Fuck this!" and apparated directly out of the casket. The others wanted to follow her, but none of them could remember where her sister lived.

Augusta was looking conflicted and when Minerva told her "Go! We need to know whether we have Alice back as well!" she nodded gratefully, quickly pulling on her robes and apparating away as well. After putting the lid back on Lily's casket and replacing the slab over her grave, the others took down the protections around the cemetery and departed as well. Minerva, Pomona and Nymphadora went straight back to Hogwarts, hoping that they hadn't been missed yet so they could pretend that they'd never left, they were also eager to tell Filius that Lily had been returned safely because it had hurt him deeply when she was taken away from them. The rest of them returned to Bathilda's cottage, reasoning that as soon as Lily calmed down she would work out that that was where they would be.

* * *

Lily arrived on the doorstep of a boring suburban house in a boring suburban street in Little Whinging in Surrey and blasted the door in, the power radiating from her in her rage making her hair writhe about her head like a gorgon's snakes as she stormed into the house. Her adopted sister's fat pig of a husband keeled over with a heart attack when his freakish _dead_ sister-in-law stormed into their living room like an avenging Valkyrie, but Lily didn't give Petunia a chance to help him as her magic was holding her a couple of feet off the floor as she thundered. "_Where's my son?_"

Liquid was dribbling down Petunia's leg as she shakily pointed out to the hall and stuttered. "Cup… Cupboard… He's in the cupboard...", because she was sure that she would be killed too as soon as Lily saw how they had treated her son.

The fact that she was cast aside to smash into the wall as Lily spun around and rushed out into the hall supported Petunia's belief, as did the sound of wood splintering as the cupboard door was ripped off and Lily whispering Harry's name and crying that she heard as she lost consciousness.

When the police arrived about twenty minutes later, after being called by the neighbours about hearing a lot of shouting from 4 Privet Drive and then a woman in strange clothes hurrying out of the house with what looked like a dead child in her arms and disappearing, Vernon Dursley was dead from a heart attack and Petunia Dursley was in a bad way, with a fractured skull, numerous broken bones and other injuries from hitting the wall hard enough to almost go right through the plasterboard, she probably would have if the supporting framework hadn't been in the way.

Eight year old Dudley Dursley was nudging his mother with his foot, telling her to get up and make him something to eat because he was hungry, but when they told him to stop that because she was hurt he just said. "Why? The Freak's been hurt worse than this heaps of times and Mummy and Daddy never let him off doing his jobs because of it."

* * *

St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was in an uproar, because Lady Alice Longbottom, who'd been laying insensible there in the bed beside her husband, Lord Francis Longbottom, ever since they had been tortured into an apparently mindless state by the Lestranges and Bartemius Crouch Junior nearly seven years ago, had suddenly gasped, sat up and screamed out. "_What the fuck?_"

While the healers were examining her, trying to work out how she could have suddenly returned to a functional state like this, her mother-in-law the Dowager Longbottom ran in, barefoot and apparently naked under the robe she was wearing, anxiously asking her daughter-in-law. "Did it work?"

It was obvious to the healers that Lady Longbottom and her mother-in-law knew what had done this but they both refused to answer any questions, the most anyone could pick up from what they were whispering to each other were the words 'ritual' and 'Lily'. What the ones capable of putting two and two together got from that was that there had been some form of ritual and it probably related to Lily Potter, who'd been killed along with her husband just before the Longbottoms were attacked, but that didn't really tell them anything.

After a bit, Lady Longbottom must have mentioned something about the Dowager Longbottom's state of dress, because she suddenly looked down and blushed, but she didn't bother doing anything about it, she just took some objects from the pocket of her robes and used them to portkey Lord and Lady Longbottom and herself away, taking her son and daughter-in-law straight out of their beds. No-one had the faintest idea where they had gone to, which pissed off a certain meddling old bastard no end when he arrived soon after they disappeared.

* * *

The other witches in the coven were mistaken about where Lily would go to when she left her sister's, but then they had had no idea how badly Harry had been treated. What Lily did caused more upset in the Goblin Nation than it had seen in centuries though, because she popped straight into the personal office of Ragnok the Third, Over Chieftain of the Goblin Nations and Director of the Gringotts Banks, and screamed. "Over Chieftain Ragnok, The Potter needs you!"

This of course resulted in the office quickly filling with Clan Gringott's elite goblin warriors, but there was no bloodshed because half of them recognised her as Duchess Potter, wife of the previous Potter, mother of the current Potter and acknowledged friend of Over Chieftain Ragnok. When Ragnok arrived, he could _see_ what Lily was upset about in Harry, so he grabbed her arm to pop the three of them to the Healers' Hall where their best healers for humans were waiting to treat _her _if the ritual worked.

Augusta arrived in the Healers' Hall with Alice and Frank while the healers were examining Harry, and Ragnok explained to Lily that the Longbottoms had been attacked a couple of weeks after she and James were. By then Lily had calmed down enough to realise that the rest of the coven would most likely be at Bathilda's, so she popped back there to fill them in and they all used the goblin portkey that Ragnok had given them to bring Lily to the Healers' Hall in Gringotts after the ritual. While they were doing that, Augusta was given another portkey to go collect her grandson Neville from Longbottom Hall and return to Gringotts with him.

Within twenty minutes of Lily and Alice being returned, they were all in the Healers' Hall, but there was a lot more going on than they'd expected. The plans that they'd put together in the days since the letters activated the vow and they all remembered that they were going to perform the ritual to return Lily on Samhain centred around taking Lily, and hopefully Alice and Frank if Alice was returned as well, to the Healers' Hall in Gringotts to treat them for whatever had happened to them since Samhain in Nineteen Eighty One. The one who needed the most intensive treatment though was Harry, and the most of them _also_ needed treatment to release bindings and remove compulsions, memory manipulations and other curses from them.

Lily didn't leave Harry's side through his treatments, and what she was muttering about what she was going to do to her sister and that old bastard for what they did to her son was disturbing the _goblins_ who heard it, which was unheard of. Between malnutrition, being overworked to the point of his body breaking down and tearing ligaments and muscles from their attachment points and the physical abuse which resulted in damage to just about every bone in his body, most of his major organs and his eyes, his physical reconstruction essentially amounted to progressively vanishing _every _part of his body and regrowing it, the physical reconstruction alone would have taken over six months of intensive treatment if it hadn't been done in a runic time chamber with a massive time acceleration factor.

Before any of that could be done though, they had to remove severe bindings on his life force, magic, intellect and memory, nasty blood wards that changed his magical signature and leached his magic and compulsions which should have left him hardly able to move, think or speak and with no magic or free will at all, not to mention a powerful soul anchor attached to him that was leaching even more of his magic and actively trying to possess him. What they got from his memories though showed that he'd been a bright, active boy who'd had more than a few incidents of significant accidental magic and no evidence at all of possession by the soul anchor. He had been miserable, to be sure, but the hell he was living in would have caused that without any outside influence.

None of the healers could understand how the child had managed to shrug off everything that had been done to him, and they actually were a little afraid of what he'd be capable of once all those restrictions were removed. The time chamber compressed over nine months inside the chamber into two days outside the chamber, and the only reason anyone recognised the boy who walked out with Lily was that he had her eyes. Without the stunted growth caused by malnutrition and being permanently hunched over because of the physical damage inflicted upon him, he was now at least a foot taller and moved with the easy grace and quickness of a fit and active child a few years older (well he _was_ over nine months older, as was Luna who had stayed in the time chamber with him and Lily the whole time, Pandora, her husband Xeno and Ragnok had all _seen_ the bonds between Harry, Luna and Hermione when they were babies so it had been agreed back then that it would help to even up their ages, and after this time in the chamber there was no more than a month or so between them).

Most of the adults and Dora (not even Andromeda had to ask why her daughter _hated_ her given name), had had bindings, compulsions, memory manipulations and other manipulations placed on them, so Gringotts' healers were busy for a few days. Being able to look into Alice's memories and see how she had been brought back by the ritual they performed to call Lily back gave them the pointers they needed to bring Frank back as well, and Alice and Frank spent a day in the time chamber with Harry being brought back to physical and mental health.

* * *

Another one they had in the time chamber with them was Sirius Black, Harry's godfather. Sirius had been framed for betraying the Potters and then murdering another of their friends and a dozen Muggles. He'd been thrown straight into Azkaban for that without a trial or even an investigation into his crimes due to Albus Dumbledore's machinations to try and get control of the House of Potter's power and fortune. Dumbledore had also done a deal with Lucius Malfoy to remove Sirius from contention to take control of the House of Black by the time the current Duke Black, Sirius' grandfather Arcturus Black the Third, died because as far as they knew that would leave Malfoy's son Draco as the only male of the Black bloodline capable of claiming the Black title.

With Dumbledore controlling the so-called 'Light' Houses and the Death Eaters controlling the so-called 'Dark' Houses, all Arcturus' attempts to get a trial for his grandson and heir over the last seven years had been blocked, so Sirius was still in Azkaban and after seven years there, Dumbledore and Malfoy were confident that if Sirius ever did manage to get out of Azkaban, he would have lost his mind to the Dementors like all the other long term inhabitants of Azkaban had. They'd also been arranging for his cell to be 'accidentally' left open as often as possible to let the Dementors get to him to suck his soul out.

What they didn't realise though was that Sirius had been staying in his animagus form as much as possible to reduce the effect the Dementors had on him. He'd also found that the Dementors tended to ignore him in his animagus form, so any time his cell door was left open he changed into his animagus form and stayed that way until the human guards returned.

Even with the amulets which repelled the Dementors to a degree, none of the human guards liked being around them, so unless they were escorting prisoners to or from their cells (or going to open Sirius' cell door as they'd been paid to), they didn't go down to the levels that the Dementors patrolled. This worked out in Sirius' favour, because once Lily, who could testify in court that he was innocent of most of the charges against him, returned the goblins used their own form of apparation to pop into his cell and remove him. This retrieval attempt happened to coincide with one of the times his cell door had been left open to let the Dementors to get at him, so they quickly created a simulacrum of him in his human form, using his and others' memories to make it look like someone who had lost their soul to a Dementor's kiss, then popped back into his cell to leave it in his place. Amelia Bones (Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement) still had some loyal people planted in the staff of Azkaban, and one of them reported that no-one had questioned that the simulacrum was anything but Sirius' soulless husk when it was found. It was buried as soon as it 'died' a few hours later and they were all ordered not to say a word about it to anyone.

This meant that they could take the time to get Sirius back into a state where he was fit to stand trial. They had someone else that they planned to track down and capture first though, Peter Pettigrew, the one who had actually committed the crimes that Sirius had been thrown into Azkaban for, but Pettigrew had been 'posthumously' been awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, for supposedly standing up to Sirius.

* * *

While everyone was recovering from what had been done to them over the past seven years, Dumbledore was doing everything he could to find out what had happened to Harry Potter and the Longbottoms. When he heard that the boy had been taken away from the Dursleys by a woman in strange clothes who might have had brown or red hair, he'd apparated straight to the cemetery in Godric's Hollow to check the Potters' graves, but they appeared to be undisturbed.

When he stopped to think about it though, it seemed more likely that either Alice or Augusta Longbottom had been the one who took the boy, because his people at St Mungo's had told him that Alice Longbottom had suddenly awoken and then disappeared around the same time as Potter disappeared. The fact that the Potters and the Longbottoms had been close with the two boys playing together quite often as toddlers and neither Augusta or Neville Longbottom had been seen since Alice and Frank disappeared from St Mungo's seemed to add weight to that theory.

He hadn't managed to question Petunia Dursley about the woman either because she was still in hospital under heavy police guard, but the gossip he heard in the hospital was that the reason she was being guarded was that she was being held on suspicion of being party to the abuse and murder of the boy who had been taken from the Dursley house. Apparently the neighbours had repeated all the stories the Dursleys told about him to the police, and reported that he had always been very small, frail and _damaged_ looking little boy, made to work all the time and flinching away from anyone who came near him as if he expected to be hit. The gossip at the hospital also said that there had been quite a lot of blood evidence found in the house that didn't match any of the Dursleys, _especially_ in the locked cupboard under the stairs which someone had obviously slept in, but aside from a suspiciously bare school record for a supposed nephew there were no legal or medical records for any child residing in the house other than their son Dudley Dursley.

Dumbledore wished he could find a way to claim the Longbottom votes and gold while they weren't in a position to stop him, but he had to concede that he had nothing that he could use to justify doing so in the Wizengamot and the other Druid Houses would almost certainly oppose him. The war wards that had been raised at Longbottom Hall would have given him cause if it were a younger house, but the thrice damned Druid Laws specified that the Most Ancient Houses had a duty to provide sanctuary to less established magical people and therefore had the right to raised war wards if they believed that there was danger about. He couldn't get through the Longbottoms' war wards, but he didn't think that they were at Longbottom Hall.

The fact that all of the monitoring and locator charms he'd linked to the blood wards for the Potter brat had suddenly died was more worrying though, if the Wizengamot's records weren't still showing the Potter line as extant he would have taken that as evidence that the Dursleys had managed to kill him, but he was alive, so someone had somehow managed to remove what he'd linked to the boy's very blood, and the list of wizards with the power and ability needed to do that was _very_ short.

* * *

They were amused when Minerva suddenly portkeying into where they were staying in Gringotts, swearing and calling herself a daft old cow, but they quickly became excited when she explained what had set her off. What it came down to was that she'd suddenly realised that she'd seen a rat that looked like the memories Sirius had shown them of Pettigrew's animagus rat form, and it was missing the same toe on its front paw as the finger that Pettigrew had cut off to frame Sirius for killing him and those muggles! She'd been grading assignments in her free period when she realised that she'd seen it at Hogwarts, as the pet of Percy Weasley, the son of some of Dumbledore's strongest supporters!

None of them believed that even his most faithful followers would have knowingly agreed to have a man in his late twenties sleeping in their pre-teen son's bed, but the probability that Dumbledore knew all about it and chose to keep that information from them was disturbingly strong. The only thing that helped settle their stomachs about that notion was the fact that none of them who knew Pettigrew believed that he had the skill to convincingly manipulate the memories of anyone enough to cover up any hint of what he was doing at night, not even a child, so they were fairly sure that he'd be staying as a rat when he shared a bed with the boy. He _might_ be getting Dumbledore to cover up night time activities, but Minerva hadn't heard any hint of dodgy occurrences in the Gryffindor tower, so they were hoping that that was evidence that he was limiting whatever he was doing to self help.

Pettigrew wouldn't have a chance to get up to anything for much longer anyway, because now they knew where to look for him, he'd be out of there pretty damned quick. The mind healers' work with Sirius offered them something to help speed this process up too, because with his memories released and his mind clear Sirius remembered that the Marauders' Map, which they'd created to help them avoid Filch, the Prefects and the Professors when they were sneaking about Hogwarts pulling pranks, had been confiscated from Pettigrew by Filch in their Seventh year and unless Filch had changed his ways in the last decade (anyone who had gone to Hogwarts snorted at the idea of Filch _ever_ changing), it would still be sitting in the confiscated objects in his office. Minerva and the others were looking dubious about how useful this would be until Remus Lupin, who the goblins had just located and brought in, explained that the nature of the charms they used to create the Marauders' Map reliably identified everyone shown on the map, even if they were in their animagus form or polijuiced as someone else.

That was enough for Minerva so she went straight back to Hogwarts, and as soon as Filch and Dumbledore were well away from Filch's office she ducked in to look for the map. The map responding to an 'Accio Marauders' Map' made enough noise to lead her straight to the filing cabinet it was being kept in and she had it and was out of the office in under ten minutes. A couple of Ragnok's best goblin warriors had come back with her and were hiding in her chambers and with the map was the work of minutes to pinpoint Pettigrew's location in the Gryffindor Second Year Boys' dorm room, pop in, stun him, grab him and take him straight to Gringotts before anything could interfere with them getting him out of there.

It didn't take long to get Amelia Bones, Alastor Moody (the legendary Master Auror who would have been the Head Auror if he hadn't told Amelia to shove the job up her arse because he had real work to do) and Saul Croaker, Director of the Department of Mysteries, into Gringotts to question Pettigrew under Veritaserum and take copies of the memories of all significant events that could be used to prosecute him and other Death Eaters, then they just had to work out how to stage his and Sirius' trials without giving Dumbledore a chance to interfere.

* * *

They actually had an advantage here because Dumbledore didn't bother attending most Wizengamot sessions during the school terms, usually making excuses about being too busy at Hogwarts and calling for someone else to act as the Chief Warlock or Chief Witch in his place, and Fudge only tended to turn up when one of his sponsors was trying to get something pushed through. Therefore they just had to make sure that the Acting Chief Warlock or Chief Witch wasn't a Dumbledore or Voldemort supporter and Fudge and his toad of a 'Senior Undersecretary' weren't present and then slip a couple of minor trial items into the schedule just before the session started.

Something else that worked in their favour was the fact that the rules stated that the Acting Chief Warlock or Chief Witch should be the most senior Wizengamot member present, and if Griselda was present, that would be her... and then they had their god hammer. This was made up of two parts, the fact that as the last of the Potter blood, Harry had become Duke Potter-Peverell and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses the moment his father died, and he had done the inheritance tests and claimed all houses that were rightfully his at Gringotts.

The biggest surprise there had been the fact that on top of the titles associated with the Potter line, he was _also_ Earl Slytherin, this had come down through his mother but like the House of Black, only males could claim the Slytherin title. For the Most Ancient Houses, this overrode any Wizengamot rules of succession so Harry could use the magic of the Wizengamot to acknowledge his claim, void any and all voting proxies that anyone had managed to get assigned since his father died and then declare his mother his Regent with all voting rights for his houses. This would strip a large voting block off Dumbledore's 'Light' House faction, and Sirius' grandfather was planning to do the same to the 'Dark' House faction. Ragnok had given them proof of who Voldemort really was years ago, but they'd been waiting for the best time to make use of that, and Arcturus had decided that this was that time.

The 'blood war' that had ravaged Magical Britain and parts of Magical Europe through the Nineteen Seventies was fought between Pure-Blood supremacists who followed 'Lord' Voldemort because they believed that the only ones who had the right to have magic were those whose parents had both been magical, going back several generations, and those who believed that it was wrong to wage genocide on the basis of magical parentage. The most rabid of 'Lord' Voldemort's followers were called Death Eaters, the ones who more his Dark Mark as a sign of his favour and were enslaved to him through the Dark Mark.

The proof the goblins had provided, and which Dumbledore had apparently known all along but never shared with anyone even though it would have quite possibly ended the war earlier, was that their so-called 'Lord' Voldemort was no Pure-Blood Lord. Tom Marvolo Riddle's father was the non-magical son of a wealthy but common local land owner and his mother, though from a Pure-blood background, could only have qualified as a witch if someone really wanted to be generous. To all intents and purposes, Merope Gaunt was a Squib who had far less magic inside her than Jane Granger did. Tom Riddle Senior _may_ have been from a Squib background as well, because his son was certainly a powerful wizard, but by the official classifications he was a Muggle. He left Merope Gaunt and had their marriage annulled as soon as she stopped using love potions to enthral him in the early stages of her pregnancy and Merope Gaunt died following her son's birth so Tom Marvolo Riddle was born a bastard and raised in a Muggle orphanage. This meant that the so-called 'Lord' Voldemort (which was in fact an anagram of his name that he created as a teenager to cover up his true origins) was in fact a common Muggle-Born (or Muggle-Raised Half-Blood if you wanted to be generous) orphan bastard, and this was what Arcturus was planning to use to strip quite a few of the titles and votes and a lot of the gold away from the Dark Houses and swing the vote in Sirius' favour when they had his trial.

* * *

Everything panned out the way they wanted at the next Wizengamot session, the Clerk of the Court announced that Chief Warlock Dumbledore couldn't get away from Hogwarts due to pressing business at the school and requested Lady Marchbanks to act as Chief Witch and preside over the session, which she accepted. There was a Ministry flunky there to represent Fudge and the Ministry so Amelia added the two criminal trial items to the schedule and once the Clerk of the Court confirmed that they had enough Wizengamot members present for a criminal trial he announced the session started and Griselda called for the chamber to be sealed. This was the first sign most in the chamber had that this was anything but a routine boring Wizengamot session, but there was nothing that could be done about it once the chamber was sealed.

The Clerk of the Court Eugene Fawcett had decades of experience at being the Wizengamot's major-domo and he preferred it when Lady Marchbanks, Lord Ogden or one of a handful of other senior Wizengamot members presided as Chief Witch or Chief Warlock because most of them had far more competence, integrity and professionalism than Dumbledore, but he could see something in Lady Marchbanks' eye that told him that this was going to be an interesting session so he smiled to himself, it would be fun to see these idiots shaken up a little. He called for notice of any matters of import that should precede the scheduled items and smiled as a woman and boy in the gallery stood and waited to be recognised, this was definitely going to be interesting, because Duchess Potter was supposed to have been killed seven years ago!

Eugene pressed a rune to silence the members benches and gallery and waved to the 'Stone of Truth' (actually a very large crystal that was the interface to the magic of the court) quietly suggesting that if Lily was identified by the magic first it may help to cut some of the arguments short. Lily smiled at him and nodded, making her Potter and Peverell House rings visible and placing her hands on the crystal. A voice rang out through the chamber. "The Dowager Lily Rose Potter Peverell, Verified." She gave Eugene a wry smile as she stepped back and waved Harry forward, as being identified as a Dowager when she was still effectively twenty three wasn't something a girl really wanted to hear.

Harry also made his Potter and Peverell House rings visible and put his hands on the crystal so the voice rang out again. "Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses, Verified."

Harry kept his hands on the crystal as he clearly stated. "I, Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses, hereby request that my mother, the Dowager Lily Rose Potter Peverell, accept the position of Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses."

He took his hands off the crystal and stepped back, with Lily taking his place and saying. "I, the Dowager Lily Rose Potter Peverell, mother of Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, hereby accept the position of Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses." She stepped back and the voice rang out. "The Dowager Lily Rose Potter Peverell, mother of Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, has been accepted as Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses."

Harry once again placed his hands on the Stone. "I hereby cancel any and all voting proxies relating to the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses and assign any and all voting rights relating to the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses to the Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses."

When he stepped back, the voice rang out. "All current voting proxies relating to the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses have been cancelled. All voting rights relating to the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses have been assigned to the Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses."

Harry bowed and Lily curtsied to the Clerk of the Court and then the Chief Witch, but they stopped when they turned to proceed to the Potter box, because there was someone sitting in it. This was just a bit of theatre really because they knew that one of Dumbledore's supporters had been voting the Potter proxies, but he was obviously a stubborn old fool because he was refusing to vacate the box, even though he must have already received a stinging hex to prompt him to vacate and everyone knew that the intensity would keep increasing until he did so. Harry turned to Eugene. "Sir, it would appear that someone is refusing to vacate the Potter box even though the Magic of the Court has verified that it is rightfully ours."

Eugene turned to look up at the Potter box and made a show of looking surprised. "You are quite correct Duke Potter…. Mister Smith, what are you doing in the Potter box? Did you not hear the Magic of the Court verify Duke Potter's identity and decision?"

The old fool winced as he received a stronger jolt from the seat. "I am acting under the Chief Warlock's orders to vote for the House of Potter and I will not stand down until I have received confirmation of the change from him!"

Eugene had to cover up a smile. "Perhaps you should see a healer to have your eyesight and hearing tested Mister Smith, because as you should have seen and heard, Lady Marchbanks is the Chief Witch for this Wizengamot session and Magic has confirmed Duke Potter and his Regent's rights, please vacate the Potter Box immediately or we will be required to take action."

"I am not going anywhere without word from the Chief Warlock that his orders for me have changed!"

Eugene looked at Griselda and she nodded grimly, so he waved to the DMLE Patrol Officers who were serving as the Officers of the Court. Smith's insults and language as the Officers of the Court dragged him out of the Potter box and threw him into a silenced restraining area earned him a few hundred Galleons in fines and quite possibly lost him his Wizengamot seat permanently. Acceptable etiquette in the Wizengamot was clearly defined in its regulations and behaviour of that nature went way beyond what was acceptable.

There _was_ an upside to the show he put on though, because no-one else wanted to risk setting anyone off in the tense atmosphere that now existed and they gave up on most of the petty arguments and questions that had been expected about how Lily could have returned from the dead and where Harry had been for the last seven years.

Eugene cleared his throat and asked whether there were any other matters of import. At that, Frank stood in the gallery and when he was recognised he had his identity verified, revoking Augusta's position as Regent for the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Longbottom and its Associated Houses and making her Steward instead, then he cancelled any and all voting proxies for the House of Longbottom and its Associated Houses and assigned them to Augusta (like Harry, as Head of House he could vote them himself but Regents and Stewards had to have voting rights assigned).

* * *

It was Arcturus' turn next, and Eugene could tell by the gleam in Griselda's eye that this was going to be something special. Arcturus was getting more than a few worried looks from the Dark House seats because he hadn't bothered attending a Wizengamot session in years and hadn't changed anything to do with the House of Black's voting proxies for even longer. There was no surprises when he was verified as "Duke Arcturus Sirius Black Glynn, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Glynn and their Associated Houses", but there was when he cancelled any and all voting proxies for the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Glynn and their Associated Houses, because that meant that no-one but him could cast any votes for any of their houses.

Little did they know that that was his _little_ surprise. He looked up at Lucius Malfoy and some of the others on the Noble House benches and gave them an evil smile, then spoke up with his hands on the crystal. "I have been presented with proof of a great stain on the honour of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Glynn and their Associated Houses. The creed of the House of Black, which has primacy over all of our houses, is that with the sole exception of the accepted monarch of Britain, we do not submit to any other. I have sighted incontrovertible proof that sons and daughters of the House of Black and its Associated Houses and their spouses have not only submitted to the authority of the one who falsely styled himself as _Lord_ Voldemort, some of them have _willingly_ allowed him to mark them as his branded slaves, forced to serve him in any way he demanded! I have also seen incontrovertible proof that this so called Lord Voldemort, who they followed so slavishly in the mistaken belief that he was the true Heir of Salazar Slytherin and epitomised everything that a _proper_ Pure Blood Lord should be, is no Pure Blood and no Lord! His true name is Tom Marvolo Riddle and he is in fact a common Muggle Born Orphan _Bastard_! His mother was Merope Gaunt, she may have been from a Pure Blood family but she was a Squib, and his father was nothing but a common _Muggle_! His mother used love potions to enslave his muggle father, but once she was pregnant she stupidly stopped giving them to him and as soon as he was of his right mind he left her and had the marriage he'd been tricked into annulled. She died in childbirth and Tom Riddle, your vaunted _Lord_ Voldemort, was born out of wedlock and raised in a Muggle orphanage. The very name of the one you enslaved yourselves to is a joke, it is no more than an anagram of his muggle name Tom Marvolo Riddle, and as for his claim of being the true heir of Salazar Slytherin? The magically accepted Earl of Slytherin has been verified by the Magic of the Wizengamot and I can assure you that the names Gaunt and Riddle do not appear anywhere in his family tree between himself and Salazar Slytherin."

"All marriage contracts with the House of Black and its Associated Houses require the explicit acceptance of the creed of the House of Black and the promise to abide by its creed, therefore any spouses of sons or daughters of the House of Black who have allowed themselves to be marked as slaves of the common Muggle Born Bastard Tom Marvolo Riddle or otherwise served Tom Marvolo Riddle are in breach of their contracts with the House of Black and I call for the dissolution of any and all marriages between the marked slaves and servants of Tom Marvolo Riddle and sons or daughters of the House of Black and its Associated Houses. Any and all titles, holdings, properties, monies and heirlooms that formed any part of the wedding gifts or dowries of any son or daughter of the House of Black and its Associated Houses and any and all monies accruing from what was given as part of wedding gifts or dowries of sons and daughters of the House of Black and its Associated Houses is hereby reclaimed!"

"In addition to this, any son or daughter of the House of Black and its Associated Houses who has allowed themselves to be marked as the slave of Tom Marvolo Riddle or otherwise served Tom Marvolo Riddle has brought shame on the House of Black and is hereby cast out of the House of Black! Any titles, holdings, properties and heirlooms representing part of the House of Black and its Associated Houses and any monies accruing from these holdings and properties is hereby reclaimed!"

Arcturus let go of the crystal and stepped back as the voice rang out. "The dissolution of any and all marriages between sons and daughters of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Glynn and their Associated Houses and marked or other servants of Tom Marvolo Riddle is confirmed. The reclamation of any and all titles, holdings, properties, monies and heirlooms that formed part of the wedding gifts and dowries of sons and daughters of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Glynn and their Associated Houses and monies accruing from these wedding gifts and dowries is confirmed. The casting out of any and all sons and daughters of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Glynn and their Associated Houses who have been marked as servants of Tom Marvolo Riddle or otherwise served Tom Marvolo Riddle is confirmed. The reclamation of any titles, holdings, properties and heirlooms representing part of the House of Black and its Associated Houses and any monies accruing from these holdings and properties is confirmed."

This announcement was confirmation that Magic had accepted Arcturus' decree and the Magic of the Court was interfacing with the Black and Associated House Family Magics and judging everyone who met the conditions.

Everyone was just staring at Arcturus in shock, because with that decree he'd just stripped over half of the votes away from the Dark Houses, reducing the number of Dark House seats by a notable amount in the process because more than a few of them had lost their status as houses along with their titles, and probably took well over two thirds of their gold to boot. A number of Wizengamot members and people in the gallery had collapsed because of the shock of losing the Black Family Magic. Griselda signalled to the Officers of the Court and had the ones who had collapsed taken down for healers to look at, as she'd rather not have any Wizengamot members die in a session she was presiding over if she could help it…. She was also glad that most Wizengamot members didn't qualify as Ministry employees, because more than a few of them looked as though they would have tried to curse Arcturus if they had their wands.

* * *

Eugene looked around and asked if there were any other items of import, taking their on-going stunned silence as a no and quickly announcing the first scheduled item on the agenda, but he realised that the Dukes and Lord Longbottom weren't the only ones stirring the pot today, as while the full name hadn't shown up before, the first item he had to announce was the trial of Death Eater Peter Pettigrew for betraying the Potters, being an accessory before the fact to Duke James Potter's murder and a number of other instances of rape, torture, murder and other crimes. The Officers of the Court forced Pettigrew to verify his identity with the Stone before they questioned him with Veritaserum. Between Lily, Frank, Arcturus and the other Druid Alliance proxies they held, they probably had enough to carry the vote by themselves, but just about everyone went along with the guilty vote. They had less support for execution via the Veil of Death, but it was still a clear majority.

After everything else, the next scheduled item wasn't much of a surprise for Eugene, and he announced the trial of Lord Sirius Orion Black. There were actually requests for clarification on that because some of the members asked whether it shouldn't have been listed as the _retrial_ of Sirius Black, trying to force it to be rescheduled, but Amelia answered them. "No, that's the problem, because when we were checking our records we discovered that Lord Black has been held in Azkaban for seven years without ever having received the mandatory trial to determine his guilt or innocence. Other discrepancies discovered in his case were that there is no record of Lord Black ever being officially questioned or having his wand checked to confirm the spells he was accused of casting, so it was determined that Lord Black had to be brought to trial…. The fact that the supposedly dead hero Peter Pettigrew was discovered to in fact be a _live_ Death Eater and captured came after Lord Black was collected from Azkaban, but it was agreed by all parties that Pettigrew's trial should occur before Lord Black's."

Sirius' trial took less time than Pettigrew's, once his identity was verified he was willingly questioned under Veritaserum and the details confirmed what they'd gotten out of Pettigrew so Sirius was cleared of all charges. The determination of suitable compensation for the confirmed Heir to two Most Noble and Most Ancient and a number of other Houses and a fully qualified and active Auror employed by the DMLE who had been wrongfully imprisoned for seven years without a trial was tabled for the next Wizengamot session and the Ministry flunky was looking green, because he managed to work out that the compensation would be more than the Ministry could afford to pay without the Minister and others coughing up a fair whack of what had gone into their own pockets.

* * *

Arcturus stood up as soon as Sirius' trial finished and when he was recognised went down to the Stone, calling Sirius to join him. Sirius tried to say 'No' because like a number of others in the chamber, he had a good idea what his grandfather was doing, but Arcturus wouldn't take 'No' for an answer and officially abdicated the titles of Duke Black Glynn, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Glynn and their Associated Houses to his accepted Heir, Sirius Orion Black. Sirius was pissed off about that, so when he saw Harry grinning as he was accepting the titles, he asked the Stone to confirm who the accepted Heir to the titles was now that he was Duke Black Glynn. Harry's face fell when he said that, because he had all his memories back now so he knew that _he_ was Heir to all Sirius' titles.

Harry wasn't the only one Sirius got back at though, because he also made Andromeda accept the position of Steward of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Glynn and their Associated Houses and assigned her voting rights for their houses.

The rest of the scheduled items on the agenda went fairly quickly, but when the session finished and the chamber was unsealed they managed to escape most of the expected grilling from the press because most of them rushed off to cover the first official execution in decades. Dumbledore had always refused to even discuss the option of executions and no cases had come up while others were presiding were they could obtain enough evidence to justify execution (which was why the Death Eaters put so much effort into blocking the use of Veritaserum), so a clear case where there was plenty of evidence to justify execution was big news.

* * *

Harry and the others weren't complaining though, there were only a few reporters who stayed to interview them so they managed to get through it and disappear before the others came back from the Death Chamber. Lily gave a brief description of the ritual that allowed her to protect Harry with her willing sacrifice and an even shorter one of the ritual they used to call her soul and life force back after seven years, explaining the first ritual had essentially placed her lifeless and soulless husk in stasis, which allowed her to be restored by the others' willing sacrifice of magical power in the ritual on Samhain seven years later. She also made a short statement that her son had been illegally placed with a Muggle relative who she and her husband had explicitly stated in their wills was never to have custody of their son by someone who sealed their wills to cover up his illegal action and also illegally manipulated the memories of anyone who knew enough to rescue her son from her relatives to prevent that happening. She recovered him herself after she was returned to her body and it had taken over nine months in a time chamber to heal what had been done to him. She finished by saying that the Muggle Law Enforcement people were charging her relatives for their crimes against her son.

Frank stepped up then and told them that Lady Longbottom had been part of the vow to return Duchess Potter and the ritual to return Duchess Potter had also brought her out of the state that they had shared since they were attacked by the Lestranges and Bartemius Crouch Junior. His mother, the Dowager Longbottom, had recovered both of them from St Mungo's and took them to another facility where they were given several months' treatment in a time chamber to allow them to recover from the attack and being essentially left without treatment for seven years.

Finally Sirius told the press that he had been framed by the one who had engineered his godson's abuse and with the collusion of two other powerful figures, he'd been thrown into Azkaban without a trial. This was done with the obvious intention of having him die in Azkaban to prevent him rescuing his godson or taking up his own role as Head of the House of Black.

When the press asked who they were referring to he just smiled at them. "You already know who, look up who sealed the Potters' wills and has been telling everyone that my godson was safe and happy with his muggle relatives. Look up who it was who told everyone that I was the Potters' secret keeper and betrayed them to _Lord_ Voldemort when it's been proven that it was Pettigrew, and look at the signatures on the order sending me to Azkaban without a trial. The only part of that he may be able to cover up is the order sending me to Azkaban as the rest was in all the papers for years."

With that they all left before the rest of the reporters could return.

**A/N: Hmm, guess this one came out of the gate at full bore, didn't it? ;^)**

**The rest won't be pushed this hard, but it was logical to get everyone out of harm's way before Dumbledore and the others could do anything to them. Everything in this chapter happened within a couple of weeks or so, as soon as Lily told them who the secret keeper was they grabbed Sirius out of Azkaban and threw him into the time chamber with Harry, Lily, Luna, Frank and Alice to recover. That's when they started looking for Pettigrew and the Wizengamot session came up about a week later.**


	2. Confrontation

**There's been a minor change in that the Witches Coven now goes back over two thousand years, as I'm expanding how it fits into their culture.**

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to anything from JKR's stories.**

Dumbledore couldn't believe it! First Lily Potter managed to return from the dead and take her son away from the Dursleys, who he'd spent quite a lot of time and energy ensuring would break or kill the little bastard. _Then_ she'd managed to convince the press, and therefore the idiots who made up Magical Britain, that as the ritual that sent her away seven years ago and the one that returned her were both acts of loving sacrifice using nurturing magical energy, they were obviously _Light_ magic, before he had a chance to do anything to refute it! The status and reputation of the prominent and respected witches and Nobles telling the story had sold everyone on the idea that their making willing sacrifices of themselves to save someone was a truly noble thing to do and any attempt he'd made to convince people otherwise had come back on him, _especially_ after she and Black convinced everyone that his actions in regard to all this proved that _he_ was the one who had gone Dark. Even trying to use the fact that she'd killed Vernon Dursley and his sister had been turned back on him, because everyone said that they would have killed those monsters if they'd ever done a fraction of what they did to Harry Potter to their children, but she hadn't touched either of them, it was their own fear of reprisals for what they'd done that had killed them.

Lily wasn't about to admit that it was actually the illusion of a ruddy great King Cobra that she'd conjured right in front of the fat cow in bed which had triggered the massive heart attack that had killed Marge Dursley, but she was adamant with those who _did_ know about what happened that she hadn't expected the bitch's Bulldog to be feeding on her for a week before they found her body. She didn't feel any guilt at all about the bitch dying, not after the way she'd tormented Harry and sicked that bloody dog on him for the Dursleys' amusement, but she had to admit that the idea of being eaten by your own dog was more than a little disturbing.

She also had no qualms about foreclosing on 4 Privet Drive when she found out they hadn't paid a brass razoo off what she'd loaned them to buy the house since they heard that she and James had supposedly been killed, obviously believing that as it was a private loan made inside the family, no-one would ever find out that they weren't making repayments (they'd obviously forgotten that they'd signed magical contracts binding them to the terms of the loan, which would have come out seven years ago if her and James' wills hadn't been sealed). After seeing the evidence of what they'd done to Harry and hearing that he'd grown up being told that James was a drunk and probable drug pusher who'd killed the two of them by driving under the influence and she was a cheap whore, she told Gringotts to give Petunia one month to repay _everything_, including all the back interest at the highest rates they could use and any and all penalty clauses they'd included in the contract, then foreclose on the mortgage.

When Petunia heard how much she'd have to repay she wailed that she could never pay that much, so they just foreclosed then and there. In the end, between what they got for selling the house, Marge's cottage, Vernon's luxury sedan and any other expensive items the Dursleys had and cleaning out all the money they had tucked away including Vernon's pension fund (no-one could sniff out where money is hidden as well as the goblins), she actually came out quite a bit ahead of what she would have gotten if Petunia and her husband had honoured their deal, even after she had Gringotts buy a dodgy ex-council flat for Petunia and Dudley to live in and Gringotts took their cut. Petunia hadn't seemed to find it amusing when she asked what she was going to to do with several thousand pounds worth of obese men's suits though. The fact that Vernon's 1980 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas had been sold off rather cheaply to one Henry James Peverell was buried in the paperwork, but Petunia wouldn't have recognised it anyway after it was changed to black with tinted windows and completely refurbished as an enchanted car with many of the Knight Bus' enhancements.

It wasn't the money, they made more than what she took from the Dursleys in a month from some of the lesser Potter investments, it was the principle of the thing. Those loan repayments were supposed to have been creating a safety net for Harry in case anything happened to her and James and someone managed to seize their holdings in the wizarding world. (She didn't know at the time that one of the Potters' non-magical investments was a controlling interest in Barclays Bank, which Gringotts had started for dealings with and investments in the non-magical world, she just thought they had all their non-magical accounts at Barclays because they were reliable, well established and had representation all over the world.) There _should_ have been enough money coming from the Dursleys to easily cover Harry's living costs until he was old enough to look after himself, but on top of working him harder and abusing him worse than the lowliest house elf, they hadn't repaid anything in seven years! Having a couple of seers in the family was handy though, as Xeno and Luna had given her a few suggestions on things that they'd seen would be big in a few years and she'd invested the money she got into them.

They wouldn't have had to borrow anywhere near as much as they did if Vernon hadn't blown most of what Petunia got from their parents' estate on creating the image of a rich and successful business executive for himself (he'd apparently read somewhere that as long as people believe you're successful you will be), but in the end Lily had loaned them most of the money she got from the estate to buy their house. With James' family being one of the richest in the Wizarding world the money was nothing more than a drop in the bucket on that side of the divide, so she'd set up the loan to help her sister out and give Harry something to fall back on if anything happened to them in the Wizarding world.

* * *

She had to admit that it had been a good idea to let Xeno print more of the full story about what had happened in Eighty One and this Samhain too, because they had some of the most respected witches in Magical Britain in their coven, not to mention some the most powerful and respected political figures in their extended family so people listened to them. While Sirius may still be much the same man child he was before he was sent to Azkaban, she'd somehow forgotten about how intelligent he was and how ruthless and effective the political training he'd received from his family up until he left home at sixteen had been. His move of refusing to say who'd betrayed them all and telling the press to look at the evidence themselves because it was all there was brilliant, and it worked even better because Dumbledore and Crouch were stupid enough to try get the Wizengamot to seal the file which included the order they'd signed to dump him in Azkaban without a trial (like Dumbledore had sealed her and James' wills), _after_ the press had been told that they were likely to do that, so everything in it ended up being displayed to everyone in the Wizengamot chamber!

They were also having a great time leading Dumbledore on a wild goose chase all over Britain, leaving red herrings all over the place. He had the Weasleys, Diggorys and others watching the Rookery where the Lovegoods supposedly lived because Pandora Lovegood was Lily's closest friend, but they actually lived in one of the flats above the Magical Trunks and Tents shop next to Gringotts most of the time, because the printing presses and offices for the Quibbler and Pandora's workrooms were hidden away in the back of the building, which had direct access into Gringotts through a secret room downstairs. They produced some of the best magical trunks and tents there but a mild notice-me-not ward kept the walk in business down, as they got quite enough work from the Druid Houses and Families and Gringotts to keep them busy.

There was similar building with the same access into Gringotts tucked into the other side of Gringotts which held the Rhys, Fawcett, Fleamont and Tonks Solicitors offices, once again they had a mild notice-me-not ward to keep walk-in business to a minimum because they had more than enough work supporting the Druid Houses and Families. The Tonks usually stayed in one of the flats upstairs there. So did the Grangers because Jane's primary occupation was doing research for the Solicitors, though she also tutored Hermione and Luna, who were registered as being home schooled, in non-magical subjects, and they were getting things set up for Harry to join them now. It was looking as though Neville Longbottom and Susan Bones, Amelia Bones' niece and ward, might be joining them as well because Frank, Alice and Amelia had been sold on the idea that the kids should be educated in both worlds. Roger Granger also did research for the solicitors and helped out with the tutoring when he wasn't helping build trunks in the trunk shop, but he loved working with his hands so he spent as much time as he could in his 'hobby' job.

Roger and Jane had taken a leaf out of Ted and Andie Tonks books in Seventy Nine when Jane was pregnant with Hermione and with the goblins' help made sure that they remained identified as a couple of well to do dentists in both worlds. They sold their house and used the money to buy the building in one of the better parts of London that their dental practice was in. The building included a residence upstairs so they had this registered as their home address in both the Magical and Non-Magical worlds. Renting out the dental practice easily covered the ongoing costs so the building gave them a permanent address to use.

Ted and Andie had done this when they got married in the early Seventies. Arcturus had quietly helped set up Phineas and Marius (Harry's great uncle) Black as Rhys and Fleamont Solicitors in the non-magical world after the war with Grindelwald finished (Phineas adopted the name of Phineas Rhys and with the last Fleamont's permission Marius became Marius Fleamont) Phineas had been hounded out of Magical Britain by their family for being a Muggle lover at the start of the Twentieth century and Marius was cast out for being a Squib in the late Twenties. Over the next twenty five years or so they built the firm up into a respected family business of solicitors as their children joined them. When her parents tried to have Andromeda cast out of the family for refusing to accept the marriage they had arranged for her with Rodolphus Lestrange and running off to marry the Muggle-Born Edward Tonks, Phineas and Marius' families took them in and the goblins helped them create non-magical identities with all the requisite education credentials they needed to join what was then Rhys and Fleamont as solicitors in the Non-Magical world and Rhys, Fawcett and Fleamont in the Magical world. Ted remained as a solicitor but Andie's presence and successes in court led to her becoming a barrister and serving that function for the firm. Like the Grangers, their official address in both worlds was the residence above their law offices in non-magical London and Dora had also been officially home-schooled for her non-magical eduction, she had almost finished her A-Levels and would be starting a university degree by distance learning when she did.

There were several comfortable flats in each of the two buildings flanking Gringotts, so Patricia Rakepick, Griselda Marchbanks and Emmeline Vance were usually living there too. They had been using Potter House, a traditional noble's townhouse that the Potter family maintained under a Fildelius charm near the Ministry of Magic building, and other Potter properties like Potter Manor up in the North Country up until Samhain in Eighty One because they were better protected behind the old wards, but without an accepted Potter the wards had been locked down by the family magic. Now that they had The Potter back though, the Potter estates could be opened up again. Arcturus would have made Black House, the Black townhouse in London, available to them but his daughter-in-law Walburga had still been living there up until late Eighty Five and he hadn't wanted to show his hand by throwing her out. On top of that, the house had been filled with dark objects for so long that it was unfit to be lived in until after it had been emptied, gutted and thoroughly cleansed. The fact that he was going through all of the dark objects personally to determine their purpose and value and he didn't want most of the Black family finding out what he was doing meant that the process took rather longer than it would have otherwise.

* * *

As far as most people in Magical Britain knew, Lily and Harry had disappeared after the Wizengamot session where Sirius was freed. The general consensus was they had retreated behind the impervious wards of one of the old Potter properties… they knew that someone was voting the Potter and Peverell proxies because the way the votes were going meant that their votes _had_ to be being cast, but no-one knew who it was other than that it would be someone from one of the old Druid Houses. Many people had their money on it being the Dowager Longbottom as she attended every Wizengamot session to represent the House of Longbottom, and it was believed other Druid Houses. Mind you, _Countess_ Andromeda Tonks was at every session as well to represent the Houses of Black and Glynn… the scuttlebutt was that she had been given her own father's title by the new Duke Black after Arcturus stripped the Black titles from anyone who had served Tom Riddle….. It certainly made a statement when the personal title of the Steward of the House of Black was senior to that of the Heads of most other Houses, which was probably a large part of why Sirius had done it. His parents and most of the rest of the Black family may have labelled him a disgrace but the new Head of the House of Black was making it clear that he was a consummate master of the game of Noble House politics…. And most of those who had stated those opinions had been cast out of the family.

In fact Harry, Hermione, Luna, Neville and Susan and a number of other children of the Druid Houses and Families _were_ spending most of their time at Potter Manor, learning about wizard, goblin, dwarf and elf magic among others and magical creatures and plants, getting through their non-magical education and learning about wizard, goblin and non-magical cultures. They were busy but Harry wasn't the only one who was having the time of his life.

The healers at Gringotts hadn't been too far from the mark about Harry's power and abilities though, because without having his magic so tightly bound that he should have had less than your average Muggle and having the soul anchor and blood wards constantly leaching it away, Harry made most who were recognised as powerful witches and wizards look like ineffectual infants. As those who understood magic knew, exercising your magic makes it stronger and his had been fighting against its bindings since he was two or three months old as his parents had to bind it to limit the damage his accidental magic was doing to the nursery. Dumbledore had tried to bind his magic so tight that he was no more than a muggle when he dumped him with the Dursleys so that he couldn't protect himself and he'd had to come back to bind it tighter at least once or twice a year when it started to break through the bindings, because it had been constantly fighting against them. With the bindings and leaches in place he had been powerful, now he was way beyond that.

This meant that Harry could accomplish far more with the metamophmagus talent he shared with Dora than she could and quickly outstripped Luna and her father's ability to make animagus transformations into different magical and non-magical creatures. He discovered that this was where Xeno and Luna's ability to understand most magical creatures came from, as if they attempted to get an understanding of the creature to make the transformation into that form they could at least get the gist of what they were communicating. In this too he went past their abilities though, because he could also speak to most magical beings and creatures, Xeno's bloodline had a lot of high elves in it, but Harry's went back to the _Tuath Dé _and the _Fomoiri_ (which was why his ancestors Myrddin Emrys and Morgana Le Fey had been so powerful), so he had a lot more affinity with other magical beings and creatures. This was how he'd been able to talk to the snake he'd accidentally released at the zoo the one time the Dursleys had been forced to take him along on one of Dudley's birthday outings, the beating he got from Vernon when they got home for Dudley ending up locked in the snake's habitat while it slithered off had almost killed him_._

The only abilities that he couldn't match were the Veela abilities of Pandora and Luna, and the Earth Mother ability that Hermione had. Like the metamorphmagus ability, these were abilities that you had to be born with and those were ones that only witches could get fully.

It was hardly surprising that the children of members of the Witches' Coven were powerful and talented though, because only the most brilliant, talented, powerful and honourable witches of their generations were invited to join, and it had skipped more than a few generations over the two thousand odd years it had existed when none had been found worthy. This also showed how exceptional Harry's bloodline was, because many of his female ancestors had belonged to the coven, from his mother and paternal grandmother back to Morgana Le Fey and beyond. Luna and Hermione also had several ancestors in the coven before their mothers, including Rowena Ravenclaw for Luna and Helga Hufflepuff for Hermione.

The Druidesses Coven of Britain (which changed to the Witches Coven at the beginning of the Eleventh Century when the Druids Council became the Wizards Council) had been originally started when Romans came to Britain because their influence began to separate men and women more. This created a need for a group to address matters that the increasingly male Druids' Council could not, because they were matters of women's magic that men could not be involved in. Coven members who had done studies of this had seen something similar in the Australian Aboriginal culture, where there were separate groups addressing secret men's business and secret women's business.

* * *

Over a month after Lily reappeared, Dumbledore was still trying in vain to get the rulings they'd had made reversed, because Lily Potter returning and rescuing her son had left his world in ruins. For a start, he called an emergency Wizengamot session to try and get it passed that Harry Potter couldn't claim his titles or assign a Regent atthe age of eight because he was too young to make those decisions, claiming that if the woman purporting to be Lily Potter was in fact his mother, she must have used illegal necromancy rituals to return from the dead so he, as Harry Potter's assigned Magical Guardian, insisted that all those changes be reversed and the woman tried for engaging in necromancy.

That was enough to make all the representatives of Druid Houses and Families who had been using notice-me-not charms to prevent him recognising them to drop the charms and respond, citing chapter and verse of the Druid Laws which had primacy over Wizengamot Law and specified Duke Potter Peverell's right to claim his titles and assign his Regent. They also pointed out that Family Magic had accepted him to all his titles and and the Magic of the Wizengamot had also accepted his right to hold them.

Then they pointed out that the rituals that Duchess Potter had used to willingly sacrifice herself to save her son and her coven had used to return her to her body were not necromancy, they were rare but proven light rituals of women's magic which required that the participants to willingly make sacrifices of themselves to save a loved one. When he tried to reject that explanation on the basis that _all_ rituals of that nature were Dark and illegal they had every woman except Delores Umbridge, and a good percentage of the men in the chamber on their feet shouting at him that the nature of the covens' magic had been accepted across the Magical World as light magic for thousands of years and no man could make any rulings about it because they could not practice it and therefore could not know what it involved. In the end Dumbledore dropped the matter because there were quite a few formidable witches in the chamber who had their wands with them and most of them looked as though they wanted to hex him into the next century for trying to cast aspersions on the nature of the covens' magic.

It was trying to play the 'Magical Guardian' card that was his undoing though, because that led straight into the matter of him knowingly and wilfully lying to the Wizengamot in order to trick them into illegally sealing the Potters' wills and assigning him as Harry's Magical Guardian in direct contravention of the wills that he himself had witnessed. All it took was the wills to be sighted by designated Wizengamot members to prove this, and it also confirm that he had knowingly lied to the Wizengamot and DMLE about then Lord Sirius Black being the one who betrayed the Potters because he was their secret keeper, because it was recorded in both wills and witnessed by him that Peter Pettigrew was the secret keeper and Albus Dumbledore had cast the Fidelius charm. Griselda displaced him at that point and took over as Chief Witch, getting a penalty of Half a Million Galleons each for Harry and Sirius levied against Dumbledore for his illegal actions against them immediately following Halloween Nineteen Eighty One. Then Lily presented evidence from Gringotts that Dumbledore had used his illegal Guardian status to steal from the Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses' vaults.

Dumbledore and most of the Wizengamot members didn't notice the specific wording of what Griselda called for a vote on, but it was worded as. "The immediate return of everything taken without proper authorisation from the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and all Associated Houses and any and all monies accruing from anything taken without proper authorisation from the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and all Associated Houses!" The vote to support this ruling was almost unanimous, so it passed, but the key points they'd missed were that while Lily had been arguing about what Dumbledore had stolen from Harry since he illegally had himself made Harry's Magical Guardian there was no limitation on the period it applied to specified in what Griselda called for a vote on, and by specifying _all_ Associated Houses, it applied to any House Harry's Houses were affiliated with so every single item and knut that Dumbledore had stolen or conned out of Harry's Houses and those affiliated with them since the day he was born and every knut earned from whatever was taken was included in the ruling. It didn't actually make him a pauper because he'd been stealing from thousands of people over the last century or so, but if he had any significant amounts to pay he would have had trouble scraping up the gold. The goblins transferred all monies and properties that came under the ruling back to Harry (along with the Million Galleons for the penalties to Harry and Sirius) and they and the elves went through his and his supporters and associates' properties and chambers as soon as the ruling was voted in and reclaimed everything rightfully belonging to Harry's Houses, along with all the Houses of their extended family.

* * *

As soon as the ruling was voted in, Augusta stood and called for a vote of no confidence to remove Dumbledore from the position of Chief Warlock, because he had been proven to have no integrity or honour and therefore couldn't be trusted to direct the proceedings of the Wizengamot. Fudge and Dumbledore's supporters tried to block it but it was passed by a clear majority. Earl Tiberius Ogden stood then and nominated Griselda as Chief Witch to replace Dumbledore but she objected.

"_No!_ Dumbledore has proven that there is too much power associated with this position to leave it in the hands of one person, and those of us who were part of the Wizengamot before he took the position fifty odd years ago know that he hasn't been the only one to abuse that power. I propose that the position of Chief Warlock or Chief Witch be replaced by a panel of three Chief Warlocks or Chief Witches, with any major issue having to be decided by the majority vote of the three of them. Minor issues may be determined by a solitary Chief Warlock or Chief Witch, but any matter which is escalated will require the other two to be called in to determine it as a panel. I call for a vote on this proposal and if it passes I will accept Lord Ogden's nomination, _providing_ he accepts my counter nomination of him for one of the other positions."

Tiberius agreed to her nomination condition and the proposal was put to a vote, being passed almost unanimously because no-one could argue with Griselda's logic. A few of the other senior Wizengamot members were nominated and in the end Griselda, Tiberius and Baron Elphias Doge (who'd always been a staunch Dumbledore supporter but was a competent Solicitor with a century's experience in the Wizengamot who was respected for his honesty and Integrity) were elected to serve as the Chief Witch/Chief Warlock panel.

* * *

After the Chief Witch/Chief Warlock panel was voted in, they dealt with the scheduled items on the agenda. Dumbledore's demand that they put aside the trial for Sirius Black because it was illegal and invalid was put to a vote and rejected almost unanimously. Then they made a point of displaying the contents of Sirius' arrest file which Dumbledore and Barty Crouch Senior were trying to have sealed, making sure that the press had an opportunity to get images of the signed order to send him straight to Azkaban without a trial to go with their stories before they rejected the proposal. This led straight into the debate about suitable compensation for Sirius' illegal incarceration, taking into account both his salary projections as an up and coming Auror and expected earnings as he assumed more of his duties in preparation for taking over as the Duke Black-Glynn. This ended with agreement for the payment of a Hundred and Fifty Thousand Galleons per year, or One Million and Fifty Galleons in total, to him being passed. Fudge whined that his administration wasn't responsible for what had been done to Lord Black and shouldn't have to pay him compensation.

Griselda almost corrected him on Sirius' title, but let it go because it was correct for when he had been sent to Azkaban. Those who knew her waited with bated breath for her response because the evil smile that flashed across her face after she whispered with Tiberius and Elphias for a while spelled trouble for someone. "While it was the Ministry who were ultimately responsible for Duke Black Glynn's illegal incarceration, I will concede your point that the current administration was not the one who ordered it Minister, though I must point out that the documents we just viewed showed that you were personally involved in some of the irregularities of the arrest that led to him being sent to Azkaban without a trial. However, given the fact that the illegal order which sent Duke Black Glynn to Azkaban without a trial was signed by three senior government officials who were knowingly abusing their authority when they did so, I call for a vote on the proposal that ex Minister Millicent Bagnold, ex Chief Warlock Albus Dumbledore and ex Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Bartemius Crouch Senior each pay one third of the compensation payment of One Million and Fifty Galleons due to Duke Black Glynn, that is to say they each pay Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Galleons. If any of these parties are unable to pay their share of the compensation payment in full, the Ministry must cover any and all shortfalls in their place. Please vote Yes if you agree with this proposal or No if you do not."

When the Clerk of the Court advised her that the Yes vote was seventy two percent she said. "Thank you Mister Fawcett. Minister Fudge, if any of these parties are unable to cover their share of the approved compensation payment to Duke Black Gynn, it will be the Ministry's responsibility to cover any and all shortfalls in the payments."

Fudge and his Undertoad were still whining, even though they'd been effectively been let off paying most if not all of the compensation payment, and as that was the last scheduled item, Tiberius announced the session closed.

* * *

Dumbledore rushed out, desperate to hide his ill gotten gains before they were reclaimed, but when he stepped out of the floo in his office he stopped, stunned, because just about all of his treasures were _gone_! The most ornate things left in the office were the frames of the previous headmasters and headmistresses' portraits, and most of them were laughing at him! He demanded that they tell him who had stolen his personal belongings but he was reminded that some of them could still be quite imposing as portraits when Phineas Black's portrait put him in his place.

"Watch your tone boy! Nobody _stole_ anything, the goblins who came to collect the items they were ordered to reclaim by their rightful owners were remarkably professional and respectful for creatures. They verified that all the items they reclaimed were the ones they'd been sent to recover and the only other items they took were the belongings of the House of Black which were supposed to have been returned to our vaults after I died but you and Dippet have refused to release no matter how many times I told you to. The lists of what was reclaimed and estimates of what you will be charged for repairing the items which have been damaged while they were in your care are on your desk."

This last was said in a rather smug tone and Dumbledore could see why, because there was a rather plain and ordinary desk sitting in place of the magnificent rococo piece that had graced the master's study in Black Manor for well over a century until Phineas took the position of Hogwarts' Headmaster and moved it into the Headmaster's office. The pile of parchment on the desk was just as disheartening, because it was at least seven or eight inches high.

He gave in and headed over to desk to look at the parchment, hoping that the pile was that big because the pages were filled with detailed descriptions of the items taken, but they were simple (if long) lists of items taken and estimated charges for repairs. There were also several pages listing missing items and the charges that would be levied for these items, it didn't take more than a cursory glance to see that the amount s listed for these were all at the top end for items of their type, so the repairs and paying to replace them would cost him a fortune…. That reminded him of something else and he raced for the floo again, if they'd cleaned out all of the heirlooms he'd been collecting, what had those damned goblins done to his vaults?

Half an hour later, he was wishing he hadn't asked that question, because he realised that for the first time in over a century, he was actually poor! Even before he took up with Gellert, Albus had been quite accomplished at inducing others to give him their gold, so he had accumulated quite a bit of it before he'd left Hogwarts and it had only increased from that point. Now though, that damned goblin he talked to had actually had the gall to laugh at him as it explained in simple words how Gringotts had interpreted the specific wording of the ruling that had been voted in by the Wizengamot, and made sure that he understood that anything and everything he had ever taken from any of the Potters' Houses or those affiliated with them was being reclaimed. If they truly knew about everything, by the time they finished he'd be lucky if he had a knut left to his name.

What was even more chilling was the goblin's response when he demanded to talk to one of the Account Managers he usually dealt with, because while generally rude and abrupt, he'd never known a goblin performing an official function to be vulgar before but even though from his clothes he held a senior position at Gringotts, this one had just given an ugly laugh and said. "They aren't available because they're all in the shit."

It hadn't clicked at the time, but given the fact that they'd known what heirlooms and gold he'd taken from the various houses, they must have caught the account managers he'd managed to turn and made them talk and if that was the case 'In the shit' was most probably quite literal because the goblins liked to feed convicted criminals to their dragons. Which led to the question of how long would it be until they came for him?….. Probably not too long after they started demanding payment of those repair and replacement charges. He knew where quite a few of the missing items were though so if he got them back from the ones he'd given them to and passed them on to the goblins, with any luck that might buy him enough time to scrape up enough gold to do a runner, with that happy thought he grabbed the bowl of floor powder and got on his knees in front of the fireplace.

* * *

Dumbledore didn't attend the next scheduled monthly Wizengamot session, because it would be too upsetting to watch others sitting in the position that he'd spent so much money and effort taking and holding and he didn't want to have to listen to himself being ridiculed any more. Fudge and his Undertoad were there though, trying to assert the authority they believed they had, which was handy because they were the targets in that session. The Clerk of the Court called for matters of import and Sirius stood and waited to be recognised. When he was recognised he went to town.

"Thank you Sir. My grandfather, the previous Duke Black Glynn, has had me catching up on what has happened in our world while I was illegally incarcerated and I must say that I was shocked by what I found. While I accept that the majority of what concerns me will take some time to address, some of these must be addressed as a matter or urgency if our world is to be saved, so I felt compelled to raise these immediately. Firstly, Minister Fudge, please explain why the funding for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has been reduced to scarcely half of what it was before what was called the Blood War began in Nineteen Seventy? That level of funding is insufficient to provide the protection that they are charged with giving the people of Magical Britain, especially when there are so many Death Eaters walking around, free as a bird."

Fudge's Undertoad stood up and spat out. "The Minister does not have to explain himself to you Black, and the upstanding citizens you are slandering by calling them Death Eaters were proven to be innocent because they were under the Imperious curse when they were forced to take their marks!"

Sirius ignored her as he turned to the Clerk of the Court. "Mister Fawcett, as the Wizengamot's Clerk of the Court, can you explain to me why this creature has been given leave to speak in front of the Wizengamot when she has no right to do so?"

Umbridge started spluttering but she was silenced and placed in a body bind as Eugene answered Sirius, trying to cover up his smile. "You are correct in that the Wizengamot rules state that as a Ministry of Magic employee who does not hold a position that grants her a seat and therefore a voice in the Wizengamot and who has not qualified for a seat in the Wizengamot outside of her Ministry position, Miss Umbridge has no right to speak in front of the Wizengamot other than when required to answer questions Duke Black Glynn. However the Wizengamot under ex Chief Warlock Dumbledore made a dispensation to Minister Fudge to allow Miss Umbridge to speak on his behalf."

Sirius frowned. "Well we've seen the quality of decisions made with Dumbledore's support and I for one am not prepared to listen to uninformed bile from a ministry flunky who doesn't know her place…. By the way Miss Umbridge, I demand satisfaction or compensation of my choice for the insult of addressing me as your inferior when only Duke Potter Peverell has the right to even address me as my peer… But as I was saying, I am not prepared to be forced to listen to this creature so I call for the dispensation allowing it to speak before the Wizengamot to be revoked, and furthermore that the Minister be reminded that the Wizengamot seats provided for himself and key department heads are a courtesy from the Wizengamot and as such, they can be revoked as well….."

He turned to the Chief Witch/Chief Warlock bench, where all three were sitting as they'd decided to handle all sessions as a panel until the Wizengamot had settled down enough to accept the changes. "My Lady Chief Witch, My Lords Chief Warlock, I apologise for usurping your authority and raising this point as a new member of the Wizengamot, but I am reminded of the old adage about how to cook a frog…." He paused and glanced at Umbridge. "Or perhaps toad may be more apropos to use here…. in that you put it into cold water and then raise the heat so slowly that it does not notice what is happening until it is too late. Yourselves and other honoured members of the Wizengamot have been forced to sit here and accept inappropriate behaviour in the Wizengamot while ex Chief Warlock Dumbledore allowed the Ministry representatives and others to ignore the Wizengamot's rules of etiquette. For example…."

He turned to face the Wizengamot benches. "Mister Malfoy! Why are you sitting in the Noble House Benches? The House of Malfoy is no longer Noble, so unless you are sitting as proxy for a Noble House you have no right to be there. Are you sitting as proxy for a Noble House?"

Lucius Malfoy's control of his ego and temper was as pitiful as Umbridge's so he leapt to his feet. "How dare you Black? The Noble House of Malfoy has held its seat on the Wizengamot for over a century!"

"Yes, the House of Malfoy has held a seat for the last century, but _not_ as a Noble House, in fact it was Noble for less than ten years between the time my cousin brought a title to your house with her dowry and when grandfather reclaimed that title from her and cast her out of the family for bringing shame on the House of Black by marrying you, the marked slave of the common Muggle Born bastard Tom Riddle... And it appears that my dance card is filling up because you have joined Minister Fudge's creature in insulting me by addressing me as your inferior, so you are offered the same options, satisfaction in an honour duel or compensation of my choice…. But as you refuse to answer my question, Mister Fawcett, is Mister Malfoy representing a Noble House here in the Wizengamot today?"

Eugene used the devices on his desk to check and shook his head. "No Duke Black Glynn, Mister Malfoy is representing only his own Junior Minor House, so you are correct. Mister Malfoy, please vacate the Noble House benches and move to the Minor House benches where you belong."

Sirius had to quell the grin that started when Eugene caught his eye as he was turning back to the Chief Witch/Chief Warlock bench. "I apologise My Lady, My Lords, but this is my point, the rules of etiquette of the Wizengamot were allowed to be trampled into the dirt under the Chief Warlock who proceeded you, and with all due respect, I believe that those of you who were forced to endure that for so long have become so inured to it that it is only new members of the Wizengamot like myself who can see it. This is why I respectfully request that you put the matter to a vote that the dispensation that ex Chief Warlock Dumbledore allowed for Minister Fudge to have his Undersecretary speak on his behalf be revoked. The reason the Minister for Magic and key Department Heads of the Ministry were granted seats on the Wizengamot was to give them the authority to represent the Wizengamot to the people of Magical Britain, this is not something to be delegated to a junior employee because the Minister cannot be bothered honouring his requirements."

Fudge jumped up and tried to shout at that, but a signal from Tiberius had one of the Officers of the Court silence him and put him in a body bind. Griselda, Tiberius and Elphias conferred for a few minutes and Tiberius nodded, turning to look at Sirius. "Your points have been well made Duke Black Glynn, we have indeed allowed ourselves to become inured to the unacceptable behaviour of the Ministry representatives and other members of the Wizengamot…. Mister Malfoy! You were formally instructed by the Clerk of the Court to vacate the Noble House benches and move to your proper place! Please do so immediately or we will be forced to invoke a disciplinary action to strip the House of Malfoy's Wizengamot seat from it!"

He shook his head as he continued. "Yes, we have allowed ourselves to become inured to quite a bit of unacceptable behaviour in the Wizengamot and you are correct, the time to begin addressing this is now. I hereby call for a vote on the proposal to revoke the dispensation granted by ex Chief Warlock Dumbledore to allow Undersecretary to the Minister Delores Umbridge to act on Minister Fudge's behalf in the Wizengamot."

Eugene advised that eighty three percent of the Wizengamot had voted yes, so the dispensation had been revoked. Tiberius looked at Fudge. "It is your responsibility to ensure that your assistant understands and accepts this ruling Minister Fudge, and as Duke Black Glynn has reminded us, you have also been failing to honour your own responsibilities to the Wizengamot and Magical Britain so I strongly recommend that you make the time to ensure that you read and understand what is required of you. To paraphrase a popular Muggle saying Minister, the Wizengamot giveth and the Wizengamot taketh away, if you don't honour your responsibilities you will be replaced with someone who will!"

As soon as she was released from her body bind, Umbridge went to storm out of the Wizengamot, but was stopped by Sirius calling out. "You must provide me with an answer before you will be allowed to leave the Wizengamot chamber Miss Umbridge, do you choose a duel to satisfy my honour or will you pay compensation of my choice?"

She tried to leave without answering but the magic of the chamber wouldn't let her and was forcing her to speak. She knew that she'd almost certainly be wiped out by the compensation payment but was realistic enough to accept in her own head at least that she'd probably die if she chose to duel Black so she spat out "Compensation!", then ran out of the chamber as soon as she was released.

Sirius turned to where Malfoy was now sitting in the Minor House benches. "The same question applies to you Mister Malfoy, duel or compensation of my choice?" Everyone could see Malfoy's rage as he was forced to make the same choice as Umbridge, for the same reason. "Compensation!"

* * *

Sirius nodded easily and turned back to the Chief Witch/Chief Warlocks' bench. "I must apologise again My Lady, My Lords, I will do my best not to allow myself to be side tracked any further… Where was I? Oh yes, Minister Fudge, please explain why the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's funding has been reduced to the point where they are no longer able to provide the protection to the people of Magical Britain that they are charged with."

The silencing on Fudge was released so that he could answer. He was fidgeting as he tried to think of a way out of answering this but he couldn't, so he tried to get around it by saying. "Available funding in the Ministry has been seriously reduced since the war so we've been forced to cut all budgets Duke Black."

Sirius was having fun now. "Oh dear, it appears that your people have been lying to you Minister Fudge, perhaps the Wizengamot needs to order an audit of all Ministry related budgets and accounts, after all, it reflects badly on the Wizengamot if its administrative body is as rife with corruption as it appears to be, because I'm seeing significant budget increases for minor departments and offices of no importance that have occurred over the last seven years while critical departments such as the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has had its budget cut to a small fraction of the previous figure… Oh my, this can't be right! Minister Fudge, do you manage your own personal vaults?"

"Of course I do! What's that got to do with what you're talking about?"

"Well I'm seeing evidence of significant transfers of funds from Ministry vaults to your personal vaults since your sudden rise to the position of Minister for Magic, if you manage your own vaults as you have say you should have seen this and reported it so that these transfers could be reversed..."

He looked up at the Chief Witch/Chief Warlock bench. "I move that an immediate audit of Ministry funds and budgets be ordered and that any transfers from Ministry vaults to the vaults of employees of the Ministry which do not directly relate to their authorised payments from the Ministry be reversed, effective immediately!"

Frank Longbottom shot to his feet. "Seconded!"

Tiberius didn't even try to cover up his grim smile as he said. "The motion to order and immediate Audit of all Ministry funds and budgets and the reversal of any transfers of funds from Ministry vaults to Ministry employees' vaults that do not directly relate to authorised payments from the Ministry has been moved and seconded. We will split this into its two parts. Please vote for the proposal to order an immediate audit of Ministry Funds and Budgets…."

The order for the Audit passed with seventy three percent of the votes. The reversal of transfers from the Ministry only passed by fifty eight percent, as Wizengamot members were wondering whether it would effect their families, but it still passed. Fudge would have fallen over if he wasn't still being held in a body bind.

* * *

Sirius stopped to think about whether he should let it go at that, but shook his head, this was the best time to strike, while they were all off balance, so he held his hand up and the Clerk of the Court recognised him.

"I have not gotten to the other matter that I wanted to raise today yet, but I was reminded of something even more important by Miss Umbridge, so I want to ensure that that is addressed…. This is the claim of Death Eaters being innocent because they were under the imperious curse. The number of children of the House of Black and their spouses who lost their titles and holdings when their magic found them guilty of being willing servants of Tom Marvolo Riddle made a lie of the contention that most of them had been forced to take his mark, therefore I move that everyone who was acquitted on the basis of their claim of being under the imperious curse be required to prove their innocence by testifying under Veritaserum. If they were in fact under the imperious curse their innocence will be proven, if not they should be properly tried for their crimes and punished accordingly. I must admit that this is a bit of a personal issue for me after I spent seven years in Azkaban for something I didn't do, only to see plenty who I know for a fact were active Death Eaters because I fought them in the war walking around free when I was finally released. Therefore I hereby move that testimony under Veritaserum be required for everyone who was acquitted on the basis of being under the imperious curse!"

It was looking like a family affair today because Augusta Longbottom shot to her feet and cried out "Seconded!" before anyone else could move.

As the Dark Houses had lost a lot of their titles and votes to the House of Black, the motion was passed by seventy four percent and anyone effected by it was made unable to vote until they had been cleared, so they couldn't vote on the last item Sirius raised.

"The other item I originally wanted to raise today is the number of excessively discriminatory and biased laws that have been passed in recent decades in regard to what some bigoted Ministry flunkies refer to as 'creatures'. The first group of these laws relate to Werewolves. Nearly every werewolf in existence today was born as human as you and me, and the vast majority were through no fault of their own turned into werewolves by being attacked and bitten. In fact the majority of werewolves in Magical Britain were deliberately bitten as children with the express intention of turning them by Fenir Greyback and some of his more rabid pack members. Most werewolves have no wish to harm anyone else, and they make a determined effort to lock themselves away on the full moon so that they _can't_ harm anyone else. There is a potion called Wolfsbane that was discovered about ten years ago which helps these responsible werewolves keep control of themselves when they transform on the full moon, it is expensive but the benefits of it make it something that we as a society should be helping make available to those who are trying to prevent their afflictions harming others..."

"My point is that there are only a very small number of werewolves who are actually threatening our society, Fenir Greyback and his ilk who delight in attacking and turning others, but are we making any effort to remove the threat of them and help the others become productive members of our society? _No!_ Magical Britain has allowed rabid fanatics like Voldemort's Death Eaters to convince it to treat all werewolves as vicious creatures to be driven off and executed so that the only ones they have to turn to are Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Yes, that's right, this was Voldemort's _plan_, and you fell for it! When responsible werewolves are attacked and driven out by the people they grew up with they are forced to turn to the packs, which are invariably controlled by rabid animals like Greyback who eagerly agree to side with Voldemort and his followers because it gives them more opportunities to attack innocents. If ordinary werewolves are not attacked without reason, they are normal people like you and me for all but a day or two a month and they willingly lock themselves away when they're dangerous to others. For the most part you wouldn't know about their affliction unless they told you, because it doesn't effect who they are most of the time…."

He looked around and saw more than a few Wizengamot members who he'd gone to Hogwarts with, he waved in their direction, naming a few. "I dare say you remember what the Marauders got up to at Hogwarts?" Most of them laughed and Sirius went on. "Who would you say were the worst of the Marauders?" The majority (including Lily) said him or James, though some said Peter because he was creepy, Sirius went on. "Yes, we should have picked up that there was something wrong with Peter, maybe if we had what happened seven years ago could have been avoided… But _none_ of you had any issues with Remus? I know he did a good job of hiding his Marauder nature with being a prefect and studying, but surely _some_ of you thought he was worse than me?" There was more laughter, but people were quite adamant that Remus was the only good Marauder, and Sirius smiled.

"That's the point I'm trying to make here, because Laird Remus John Lupin is a werewolf, he was bitten and turned by Fenir Greyback when he was six years old because his father had made some statement that Greyback didn't like, so Remus was a werewolf the entire time he was at Hogwarts but your memories from the one to seven years you were at Hogwarts with him are of what a good person he was, how studious he was, what a conscientious and helpful prefect he was… you didn't see a werewolf, you saw the good man he was and is, and Remus assures me that that vast majority of werewolves in Britain are just like him. The only time Remus was ever a threat to anyone else at Hogwarts wasn't his fault, it was _mine_! In a fit of childish spite I allowed a vile creature who was trying to expose Remus to irritate me enough to tell him how to get into where Remus locked himself away at the full moon to protect everyone else. I don't know what I was thinking, I didn't really intend for that bastard to die, I was expecting him to shit himself and run away as soon as he saw Remus but fact remains that he _could_ have died down there and if he did it would have been _my_ fault, not Remus'. Luckily James found out what I'd done and got him out of there before that happened and James and Remus quite rightly didn't talk to me for months, but my point is that Remus wasn't a danger to anyone unless some other idiot sabotaged what he was doing to protect everyone. Even then, if Wolfsbane had been available back then he would have been able to control himself so that bastard wouldn't have been in any real danger..."

He stopped and looked around, heartened by the fact that more people were looking thoughtful than dismissive. "So what I'm proposing here is to have a Wizengamot committee review all the laws relating to werewolves, with a view to repealing the bigoted idiotic shite that is currently in place and replacing it with something that gives those werewolves who are trying to be good members of our society the support and respect that they deserve, ensures job conditions for them so that they can safely lock themselves away on the full moon and have time to recover afterwards, and assists them in getting the Wolfsbane they need to control themselves under the full moon..."

His expression hardened "And instead of murdering innocent children who have this affliction through no fault of their own, track down and eradicate those animals like Fenir Greyback who attack and turn innocents for the pleasure of it! I've looked at the statistics of werewolves executed by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Werewolf Capture Unit and do you know what I found? _All_ the ones executed were children or innocent witches and wizards who weren't really harming anyone, not once did they go after animals like Greyback and his ilk because they're too dangerous! After all, why risk going after a dangerous animal when you can have a bit of sport legally killing someone who isn't likely to hurt you? The _only_ way to protect Magical Britain from werewolves is to track down and eliminate the rare few like Greyback who willingly attack others! Once you get rid of them, just about all of whom are known by name because everyone knows what they're like, it will be a rare occurrence for anyone else to be turned which will make it far easier to help the ones responsible get themselves under control if it was accidental or deal with them if it was deliberate. The sanctioned murder of witches, wizards and other people for sport because they happen to have the affliction of Lycanthropy must _stop_! Execute the guilty but protect the innocent!..."

He could see some sticking to their position so he shouted. "Lord Rosier! If Fenir Greyback comes to your home on the next full moon and attacks and turns your whole family into werewolves, will you accept that it's good and proper for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to come and slaughter every member of the House of Rosier like dogs because they are now werewolves?"

Rosier was on his feet in a flash, obviously wishing he had a wand. "I should call blood feud on the House of Black for that threat! I would do so if you weren't so much bigger than us!"

"But I'm just advocating what the current laws that you are indicating you support require Lord Rosier. Why is your family any different from anyone else who has been turned against their will, does what they can to prevent putting anyone else at risk and just wants to be left alone to live their lives in peace?"

"You are talking about eradicating a Noble House!"

"You aren't listening Lord Rosier. I'm advocating reviewing and changing the current unjust laws to prevent that happening to your family and others if they are attacked and turned against their will by something like Greyback, which is why I cannot understand why you are opposing me on this."

He gave a quiet sigh of relief then, because he could see that Rosier was actually considering the point now that he'd been slapped in the face with that possibility. If he could make a rabid hardliner like Rosier start thinking about how the current laws could effect him, there may be hope that the rest of the Wizengamot might do so as well.

With what he thought was the hardest fight out of the way, Sirius added that he thought that the laws relating to other magical people like Goblins, Dwarves, Elves, Centaurs etc and Muggles should also be reviewed and revised to allow them to promote better relations and prevent conflicts.

Griselda gave him an approving nod as she asked for volunteers to work on the reviews that Duke Black proposed. It was no surprise that most of the names were from the Druid and Progressive factions, but some of the ones from the Traditional Pure-Blood factions seemed to be prepared to actually consider the issue rather than just hold up the process.

* * *

After Elphias closed the session, he, Griselda and Tiberius sat talking quietly as most of the Wizengamot members packed up and left the chamber. They were all having trouble getting their heads around the changes of the last two months, even Griselda who'd been involved in the event that kicked everything off. Since Lily Potter was returned from what everyone thought was the dead, Sirius Black, who most of Magical Britain had been sure was Voldemort's right hand man who betrayed the Potters to their deaths, was cleared, released from Azkaban and became Duke Black-Glynn. Peter Pettigrew, who'd been mourned as a dead hero and awarded the Order of Merlin posthumously for his bravery, was revealed to be the live Death Eater who was guilty of everything Sirius Black was accused of, tried and put through the Veil of Death. Harry Potter, who they'd been assured was happy and safe with his Muggle relatives, was revealed to have been worked and abused like a house elf and almost killed by them, but he had recovered and assumed his role as Duke Potter-Peverell, with his mother as his Regent. Frank and Alice Longbottom were freed from being trapped inside their heads for seven years, recovered and re-took their places in society. Albus Dumbledore, their revered leader, was revealed as being a liar and manipulator who was responsible for most of what had happening in '81 and most of what had been done to the others since… Elphias was troubled the most by this as he and Albus had been close friends for over a century, but his attempts to coerce Elphias into pushing the agendas that he no longer had access to confirmed the truth about what he'd heard of Albus' actions.

Then they had Arcturus Black telling everyone the truth about Lord Voldemort and using the judgement of magic to reclaim the titles, votes and gold of most of his family and those who they were married to because they'd gone against the Black creed by bowing to a common Muggle-Born bastard. And Sirius, who they'd only known as a prankster, turning into a true Duke Black, putting the Ministry and the Death Eaters in their place and convincing the Wizengamot to review all the werewolf, creature and Muggle laws…. Elphias wasn't entirely joking when he said he didn't know whether his heart could take much more of this.

**A/N: Oops, I didn't do too ****good a job of**** backing off the pace in this chapter, did I? Sorry. ;^)**

**I ****promise**** that the next chapter will be less hectic. It'll have to be, otherwise the story will be done in a few chapters. OK, it's only been about two months to this point, Dumbledore is pretty much broke at this point and was fired as Chief Warlock but he's still Headmaster and Supreme Mugwump and is scheming to get everything back when he isn't thinking of running away from the Goblins... ****being idiots Magical Britain will probably ****be ****swallow****ing**** whatever he tells them ****again**** in a week or two****. Between Arcturus and Sirius the Death Eaters and Fudge have had their teeth pulled and Harry is having a good time in his new life.**


	3. Coming At You

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to anything from JKR's stories.**

Sirius knew that most of the Death Eaters would try to run before the next scheduled Wizengamot session, because they had to know what would come out if they were questioned under Veritaserum, but there was one he wasn't about to let get away without paying a penalty, so they had elves watching every one of his likely destinations that would be public enough to humiliate him. Given their history, they weren't too surprised to hear that Malfoy had gone to visit Fudge the day after the Wizengamot session where he and Umbrage had chosen the option of paying compensation of Sirius' choice over facing Sirius in an honour duel.

Malfoy was in Fudge's office long enough for Sirius to be waiting with Amelia, Saul Croaker, Frank, Alice, Pandora and Lily (Sirius, Frank and Alice had been reinstated in their jobs as Aurors and Lily as an Unspeakable after they were accepted back into the society of Magical Britain) outside Fudge's office with Ted Tonks, Horace Fawley and the press when Malfoy came out with Fudge and Umbrage. Seeing the group waiting for them, Malfoy hastily cut off his haranguing Fudge about protecting him from what Black was doing.

Only an idiot would have taken the smile Sirius was giving Malfoy and the others at face value, and this was confirmed when he spoke. "Ah Cornelius, Lucius and Delores. Just the people I've been looking for! You see Frank pointed out to me that it would be just cruel to leave Lucius and Delores worrying about what I will be claiming from them in compensation, so I decided that it would be best just get it out of the way in one go, rip off the bandaid quickly as Lily is want to say. Xeno wanted to report what happens in the Quibbler, because people don't get to see the old laws being enforced much these days, and it wouldn't be fair to our friends at the Daily Prophet not to give them the opportunity to do the same, I hope you don't mind?" It was obvious that they _did_ mind, quite a bit, but Sirius didn't give them a chance to respond.

"Now Delores, we looked into what you have to offer that would meet the compensation requirements, but you don't really own anything of value, do you? I suppose that's only to be expected when your father never got above a cleaner in the Ministry's Sanitation Department and your mother was a Muggle Housewife up until she and your brother disappeared while you were at Hogwarts, but it did present quite a bit of a quandary for me. It was looking like I was going to be forced to change the terms back to an honour duel to get satisfaction from you but luckily Ted, who's my solicitor by the way, came up with another option. Ted pointed out that the only thing of any real value you have to offer is your employment and current position at the Ministry and I've decided to let you off the hook and accept that as your compensation payment, so we're here to officially transfer your employment at the Ministry and current position as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic to my old family friend Baron Horace Fawley. Horace was actually employed at the Ministry up until he took his family off into the Muggle world back in the war to hide them from the Death Eaters, so I'm sure he'll fit right in. Now as Horace found out when he left the Ministry in the war, we need to ensure that you don't take any Ministry secrets with you when you leave, so Saul will be removing any relevant memories and Amelia will act as the official Ministry witness to attest that it was all performed in accordance with the Ministry's requirements."

Umbrage, Fudge and Malfoy wanted to refuse, to scream and rant and rave about that, because she had far more dangerous secrets in her head than _Ministry_ ones, but they could see that this group were just waiting for an excuse to unleash all kinds of hell on them so they grudgingly gave in, hoping that Croaker wouldn't find anything that would incriminate them too much. Once Umbrage's Ministry employment and position were officially transferred to Horace, she was directed to wait off to one side while Sirius dealt with Malfoy.

The evil smile that appeared on Sirius' face made Malfoy shudder, because the House of Malfoy had already lost their Noble title, major holdings and most of their gold to the House of Black thanks to Narcissa's Great Uncle, and he knew that Black would enjoy making this as painful as possible for him.

"Deciding what to do about you was far more difficult Lucius because as we both know, your insult to me yesterday was far from your first or most serious insult to the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Black. You've also been remarkably free in telling all and sundry that the one you claim as your get will be Duke Black when the Old Bastard, as you've called Grandfather more than a few times in public, finally dies…. You should be thankful that your brother in law Ted here is an uncommonly forgiving man because he has asked me not to consider your insults to him and his family in deciding what penalties to levy against you…. Which just proves that he isn't the Black in their family because a Black would _never_ be that forgiving. Unfortunately for you, Ted wasn't involved in deciding the matter, it was done by Grandfather, Cousin Andie and myself..."

He glanced at Ted. "Sorry Ted, Andie had to defer to Grandfather and my authority when we decided that _all_ insults against the House of Black would be taken into account in our deliberations."

With that he turned back to Malfoy, whose haughty demeanour had collapsed as he realised that the House of Malfoy was about to be destroyed.

"This is what was decided. The two Baronetcies which the Malfoy Family has used to elevate itself to the Minor house of Malfoy and everything on the holdings associated with those two titles, including Malfoy Manor and your Acomantula silk and potion ingredients farms, are hereby forfeited to the House of Black. So are your shipping and trading companies, including all their business properties both here and overseas, plus a Million Galleons from the vaults you used to pay the guards in Azkaban to leave my cell door open so that the Dementors could get to me and kill me in hope that your heir would then have a clear run at the Black titles. It will be interesting to see how you will get out of paying for your crimes _now_ Mister Malfoy!"

Malfoy was a broken man as he formally transferred the titles, holdings, businesses and gold to Sirius, and the Daily Prophet's reporters were telling their photographer to make sure they got plenty of pictures because The Black sticking it to Umbrage and Malfoy was definitely going to be on the front page of tomorrow's paper. The expression on the Director of the DMLE's face as she looked at Umbrage promised that this wouldn't the only story coming out of this either. Some of the press noticed that 'suggestion' from the Minister's new Senior Undersecretary that he and the Minister should get to know each other before they both headed into the Minster's office sounded more like an order, so there could be a story in that as well.

* * *

Harry bounded out of bed, had a quick shower, threw some clothes on and popped out of his trunk at around the same time he used to head down to make breakfast for the Dursleys, but while his new life was far more physically and mentally taxing than his life with them had been, he woke up eagerly looking forward to the day now. A large part of the reason for that was the two girls who were waiting downstairs with hugs for him, and his Mum of course.

Their mornings usually started with a rowdy family breakfast, then the ones who had to headed off to work while the others began their training. Harry's favourite times were outside, flying or spending time with the magical creatures, but he accepted what his Mum and Uncles and Aunties told him about needing to be ready to face the Old Bastard (which was pretty much the only thing they ever called Dumbledore) by the time Hogwarts started next September, so he didn't complain when they spent a lot of their training in the runic time chambers inside their magically expanded trunks or Gringotts.

This allowed them to fit in all the training they needed, not to mention increasing their effective ages enough to forestall the expected arguments. The original idea had been for Neville, Susan and twenty odd other children of the Druid Families and other Houses to use the time chambers to get up to Harry, Hermione and Luna's effective ages and knowledge levels by the time the next school year started but it didn't take long to work out that they were never going to be able to match those three in knowledge and ability or keep up with them in training.

After much debate, it was agreed that it would be unfair to push the others hard enough to age them up to seven years and get them physically, mentally, emotionally and magically ready to deal with Dumbledore in the ten months they had to do it, but all but Harry, Hermione, Luna and a handful of the others were shocked to be given a voice in that debate. More than a few of the adults were quite shocked when Hermione first spoke up.

"It's ridiculous to expect this of the others! Our mums and dads and aunts and uncles have been training Luna and I for this since we were little girls and Harry has effectively spent two years in the time chambers getting intensive training and being healed from what those animals did to him, but most of the others haven't been prepared at all! What will be a relatively easy five years effective time for us to get ready to start as fifteen year olds will be a hard slog of up to six or seven years for some of the others."

The ones who expected this little girl to be put in her place by her parents were shocked to see the coven members and wizards they were expecting to lead them beaming at her in approval as Luna nodded and took over.

"We may only be ten, but as Hermione said she and I have already had at least seven or eight years of what most would consider advanced training from our family to get to here and Harry crammed the equivalent of five or six years of intensive training in while he was in the time chambers. All our mums are members of the Witches' Coven, and you wouldn't be here if you didn't know what that means, so it's unfair to expect the other children to be able to get up to the level we'll be at by the time we start at Hogwarts. We're all going to be fifteen by then and going into Fifth Year, and we're sure to be ahead of everyone else in our classes. Some of the older ones may be ready to join us in Fifth Year when the time comes, but I think it would be far better to spread most of them over the First to Fourth Years, according to what they're comfortable with."

The other adults were nodding now because that made sense, these two may be little girls on the outside, but they were beginning to see that underneath they were brilliant and capable witches who knew more about what was going on than most of them did. Many of the adults present were actually Squibs, because the core group had a plan to strip power from Dumbledore's factions in the Wizengamot like Arcturus and Sirius had stripped it away from the Death Eaters and their allies. It was Jane who had started them down this path, because Hermione had successfully claimed the title of Head of the Ancient Druid House of McKinnon as the only living member of the McKinnon bloodline who was accepted as magical when she was five, and then they quietly revoked the voting proxies that Dumbledore had assigned to one of his supporters and reassigned them to Luna's father.

While Jane and Roger had been dentists, that had mostly been due to Roger following in his father's footsteps and Jane changing her path to be with him. They had come together through their shared passion for research, and after they moved into the Magical world so that their daughter could be protected by the coven and the goblins, this passion and their talent for it came to the fore. They _did_ do legal research for Rhys, Fleamont and Tonks, but the majority of what they did was working with the goblins to determine how many of the so-called Muggle-Born and Muggle-Raised had valid claims to Houses and Druid Families that had been made extinct in the war so they could claim their Houses and Families and take their votes back from Dumbledore, as well as any other extinct Houses or Families their people had a valid claim to.

This was how Dumbledore had acquired the power base he had in the Wizengamot, using his position as the Chief Warlock to claim or allocate the voting proxies of Houses and Families that had either been made extinct or no longer had any adults available to cast their votes…. When they had the time they'd be looking into how many of those houses had been laid low as a result of his machinations, Harry's Houses and the McKinnons definitely had been and he'd been directing the Longbottom votes for the last seven years by manipulating Augusta, so others had undoubtedly fallen victim to his plans as well and he'd be made to pay for his crimes when the time came….

What Dumbledore either didn't realise or was hoping that no-one else knew was that the Most Ancient and Ancient Houses and Families had had their rules of succession locked in by the Druid Laws, and these couldn't be overridden by Wizengamot Laws. The Wizengamot Laws stated that the Heir to the Head of a House or Family could not claim their inheritance and take control of their family's votes until after they had reached their age of majority at seventeen. What the incontrovertible Druid Laws stated however was that the Heads of Most Ancient Houses and Families reached their age of majority at eleven, and the Heads of Ancient Houses and Families did so at fourteen…. but if they were the last member of the bloodline who was recognised as magical, they could be deemed to have reached their age of majority and take control of their family's votes and assets as soon after birth or the previous head of the family died (whichever came last) as their Family Magic judged them to be mature enough to claim their place as Head of the Family.

Minerva had been quietly extracting magical children's details from the book of magical births and passing them on to Jane and Roger since they started hiding in the Magical world and they in turn had been doing the research to locate the parents of magical children so that the extended family could offer them protection. After Jane's magical family were wiped out and Dumbledore swooped in to grab their voting proxies though, they started looking into what could be done to thwart his plans.

That was why this group was there, several of them had what were classified as Muggle-Born or Muggle-Raised children who had successfully claimed their places as Head of their Houses or Families and then quietly revoked the voting proxies that had been assigned for their family's Wizengamot votes, reassigning the voting rights to members of the Druid Faction via proxies or becoming vassals of the Druid Houses. Part of the reason the other children were to be spending time in the time chambers was to get them up to the age of majority they needed to claim their places as Head of their Houses or Families because they still had living magical relatives.

Harry added his two knut's worth when Luna finished talking. "The thing is, our Mums are brilliant…." The semi-serious miffed looks on Xeno and Roger's and his father's magical portrait's faces made him hastily amend that. "Just as our fathers are, so they've been teaching the girls all of this stuff since they were little, and I was given the equivalent of two or three years worth of crash courses in magic and politics while they were putting me back together in the time chamber and a few more in the time chambers since then. That will continue for next five years of training we'll be doing in the time chambers so it's just not fair to expect the others to be able to catch up with us and deal with the same things we'll be dealing with. Our parents and aunts and uncles have made sure that we understand what we'll be up against, and it isn't pretty, the Old Bastard as they call him..."

Most of the group laughed grimly at that because from what they'd heard that was a very apt description of the one who had so blithely destroyed anyone who got in his way.

"Will be coming at us hard as soon as we come out into the open and I don't want anybody else to be in the firing line…. I'd rather the girls weren't either but I remember the way Auntie Pan and Auntie Jane tore strips off all the men in the family when I was little so I know I can't stop them…"

The laughter was freer this time because the determined looks on the girls and their mothers and the men's winces as they recalled those incidents made it obvious that Harry wasn't exaggerating about that.

"I guess what I'm saying is just what Hermione and Luna said, it isn't fair to push the others that hard. I lost my chance of a happy childhood when I was dumped with Mum's relatives after Mum and Dad were supposedly killed so I can't miss what I never had, the girls are determined to join me in spending the next five years effectively working hard to get ready to face Dumbledore and I can't stop them, but the rest of the kids should be given a chance to hold onto their childhoods while they can. Give them the chance to decide for themselves how hard they want to push themselves, waiting another year or two, three, four or more to get control of more votes to use against Dumbledore and the Death Eaters won't make or break us, but pushing the ones who have to claim their houses to get those votes hard enough to make them hate us for it could ruin everything we're trying to do..."

There was silence when he finished speaking as everyone took in what he'd said. Many of the adults were thinking that whatever they looked like at the moment, these three weren't children, in just a few short years they would be the leaders of their world, but just about everyone was agreeing that Harry was... no they all were…. right, everything they were doing would be wasted if they pushed the children to assume adult responsibilities before they were ready. Harry's point that waiting a few years to gain control of all their votes wouldn't be the end of the world was what drove it home for many of them though.

Some of them had been working towards this for the last seven years and it would be another six to ten months at least before most of their children would be able to claim their titles and get control of their families' votes, but the core group had already made great strides towards knobbling the ones who had kept a tight grip on the reins of Magical Britain for the last few decades, so it would be ridiculous, not to mention unconscionable, to ruin everything by trying to force the children to do more than they were ready to.

Neville spoke up at that point. "I'm not in the same position Harry and many of you are, because I have my Dad back to handle these things for our family now, but I think Harry and the girls are right. Harry has stepped up and taken the votes for his family back from Dumbledore's faction, so did Dad and some of the others and Great Uncle Arcturus and Uncle Sirius have taken even more off the Death Eaters, so what we're talking about here is more increasing the margin we have in the Wizengamot than chasing the votes we need to take control…."

"Sue and I and some of the others have been training with Harry and the girls in the time chambers this week and I don't know about anyone else but there's no way I can keep up with them. I've learned a bit about magic over the last five or six years but Gran and the other coven members have been doing their best to teach me about what I'll need to know to take over our house in a year or so when I reach my majority at eleven, and even with the foremost experts in the field teaching me since I was a toddler, Harry's already years ahead of me, not to mention the fact that he has already stood up in front of the Wizengamot and taken control of his Family and its votes. I guess what I'm saying is that I for one aren't ready to try and keep up with Harry and the girls because I know that that would just turn me into a gibbering idiot. I'll be doing my best to add at least a few years to my age and go to Hogwarts having learned enough about magic to do my parents, Gran and the House of Longbottom proud but honestly, that's as much as I'm capable of."

Sue hugged him and nodded. "I agree with Neville. Like him, I've got my Auntie Ami to look after the affairs of the House of Bones, but Auntie Ami's busy as the Director of the DMLE so I've received even less training than Neville has, I've gotten more training in the time chambers this week than I ever did before and I'm not even close to being ready to take over my title as Head of the House of Bones. For anyone who hasn't managed to spend time with Harry, Hermione and Luna yet, you can take it from me that they're a force of nature. Auntie Ami said and I agree that their parents are the most brilliant people we've ever met, but they're the first ones to say that those three are going to surpass them and everyone else within the next few years. Like Neville said, trying to keep up with Harry, Hermione and Luna would turn me into a gibbering idiot so I'm just going to do the best I can and try to make Auntie Ami and the rest my family, wherever they are, proud of me."

Some of the other children who'd spent time training in the time chambers with Harry and the others spoke up, saying similar things, so it was agreed that it would be left up to the children to decide how much time they would spend training in the time chambers and how intense that training would be. The only parents who made an effort to convince their child to make an extra effort were the Greengrasses, but that was because they really believed that their younger daughter Astoria would be much safer if she started at Hogwarts with her sister Daphne and the others, so they encouraged her to make up at least three and a half years more over the next ten months in the time chambers so that she'd be old enough to start at Hogwarts in the next school year.

Harry and the girls had settled into their routines pretty quickly, spending nights in the runic time chambers in their trunks doing classes and training and sleeping, which also got them used to sleeping inside their warded trunks for when they went to Hogwarts and wouldn't be behind the ancient Potter wards any more. They generally had breakfast with the extended family and did their Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology classes and other outside activities up until lunch, then spent afternoons doing training in the time chambers using higher acceleration factors in Gringotts. The outside sessions were the most exciting because they used the goblin floos to go all over the world for them.

* * *

The gullible nature of Magical Britain was demonstrated by the fact that the Daily Prophet reporters hadn't linked Minister Fudge's quick acquiescence to his new Senior Undersecretary's 'suggestion' that they get to know each other with the fact that his previous Undersecretary was having her memories reviewed by the Directors of the Department of Magical law Enforcement and the Department of Mysteries and the most titled employees of the Ministry of Magic. None of them had the slightest doubt that they'd get enough out of Delores Umbrage's head to send her, the Minister and many senior Ministry and Wizengamot people to Azkaban if they wished, and that was how Horace easily commanded Fudge's cooperation.

Horace had hardly had time to soften Fudge up with veiled threats of what Sirius and the others would do to him if they found that he'd been involved in the downfall of any Houses currently affiliated with the House of Black before Amelia returned with Sirius and an anonymous Unspeakable (Lily, of course). Horace had to stifle a smile at the secretive smirk Sirius sent him, they obviously hadn't taken long to crack the toad. Amelia and Sirius settled into the chairs across the desk from Fudge while Lily stood there being…. Inscrutable…. After looking at him without speaking for long enough to make him sweat, Amelia began.

"We appear to have a serious problem Cornelius..."

Fudge went to ask her what the problem was but stopped himself, obviously deciding that it would be better to wait for her to tell him. Amelia and Sirius shared a glance, he was apparently brighter than he looked, but that could work in their favour because a little rat cunning would help remind him of what the consequences would be if he crossed them.

"You see Delores became quite talkative about what she's been doing for you and others when she realised that we had her cold, and apparently she's kept proof of everything she's done for whom…. I've got someone collecting that evidence at the moment. I don't think I need to tell you that this doesn't look good for you…. At all."

Lily was wondering whether she was going to see her third fat pig having a heart attack in just over two months, but Fudge's magic kept him alive, and to be fair he was nowhere as obese as the Dursleys.

"I'm sure you know my views on those who abuse their authority for personal gain and you've already heard from me what I think about those budget cuts for my department that Duke Black Glynn raised in the Wizengamot, but Duke Black and Lord Longbottom have reminded me of a Muggle saying that is quite apropos here…. Better the devil you know…."

She left him to sweat for a few more minutes before continuing, as she was starting to enjoy herself.

"I was opposed to what they were suggesting at first because it sounded like blackmail, but Lord Longbottom has convinced me to view it as giving you an opportunity to redeem yourself, and that we could always go ahead with the criminal proceedings if you failed to do so..."

"How do you feel about getting a chance to redeem yourself and your good name Cornelius?"

Fudge was stuttering that he would be ever so grateful for the chance to make things right, but Amelia cut him off.

"You do understand that we aren't going to let you off with any empty promises here, don't you Cornelius? If you promise us that you will stick to the straight and narrow from now on and then go back to taking bribes for agreeing to bend or break the rules on behalf of _supporters_, you'll be up in front of the Wizengamot before you can say 'Merlin'! And we'll be keeping all the evidence about this agreement and your activities in a safe place, so we'll be able to prove everything if you make us take it to court."

She was pretty sure that had just made him wet himself, she was getting a little too much enjoyment out of torturing him like this but people had suffered and died because of this little bastard's money grubbing and overly flexible morals so she couldn't make herself feel guilty about that.

"No, I mean yes! I will change, I promise Amelia!"

Amelia made a point of turning to look at Sirius and at his thoughtful nod to say that he believed that Fudge was being honest, she turned back to Fudge. "Very well, we will give you a chance to prove that you've changed Cornelius, but may the gods help you if you try to trick us!"

"Now what are we to do with your partners in crime?"

"Partners in crime? I'm not a partner of any criminals!"

"That was merely a saying Cornelius, I'm talking about the other ones that Delores has been telling us about, and there's enough correlation between what she told us and what the audit of the Ministry budgets has shown us that I'm inclined to accept what she'd said without waiting to see the evidence she has been collecting. We will be moving on a number of them soon enough, but two in particular bother me, because they hold positions which could allow them to do quite a bit of damage... I'm referring to Barty Crouch and Archie Macmillan, as the Heads of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. We'll be charging more than just them but they need to go as a matter of priority and I need to know whether we will have your support in replacing them at the next Wizengamot session with more trustworthy candidates?"

"Of course Amelia! Do you have anyone in mind? I can recommend some outstanding individuals..."

"Forgive me for being a little blunt here Cornelius, but your judgement to date when it comes to those you regard to be outstanding individuals has left quite a lot to be desired. While I haven't discussed the matter with them as yet, I already have qualified and trustworthy people in mind for both those positions. I believe that Lord Francis Longbottom has the background, connections and integrity needed to make far a better Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation than anyone in recent memory and I can't think of anyone better suited to heading up the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures than Laird Newton Scamander."

"_Excellent _choices Amelia, you can rely on me to support Frank and Newt's instatement as the Heads of those Departments as soon as we get rid of Barty and Archie. Would you like me to make the official announcements for you?"

"No Cornelius. No announcements of any kind will be made about these matters until after charges have been laid against Crouch and Macmillan, which brings us to another point, before we leave this office I need to have you give me your unbreakable oath that no trace of this discussion will be revealed in any form to or in front of anyone other than those currently in this room, well Duke Black Glynn, Baron Fawley and myself, as the Unspeakable's identity must of course remain a secret. They are actually here to seal the oath when you give it to add another layer of security to the oath…."

She waited for him to start to speak and then cut him off. "The oath is non negotiable Cornelius, the only other option is for us to obliviate you of this meeting and prosecute you for your crimes that Delores Umbrage has revealed to us."

Fudge closed his mouth with a 'clack' of his teeth hitting each other and stayed pale and silent for the rest of the meeting except when he gave his oath.

* * *

As soon as they were back in Amelia's office with privacy wards erected, Amelia collapsed in her chair, unable to stop laughing. When she was back in control enough to speak she said. "I'm beginning to see the appeal of the pranks you lot pulled at Hogwarts Sirius, it was a struggle not to laugh in his face every time he just about wet himself."

Sirius smirked at her. "Yes, but this is better than the pranks we pulled at Hogwarts Amelia, because it will actually help us get rid of some of those bastards who have been hiding behind Pureblood privilege and put trustworthy people in to replace them. _Now_ do you believe me that it was Lily who came up with all our best pranks?"

"Yes, and thank you for managing to come up with a prank that will benefit Magical Britain Lily."

Lily curtsied with a smile. "You are most welcome Amelia… But the crowning achievement in this whole business was Sirius's contribution, no one but a Black could ever come up with the idea of using a prank to blackmail that fool into becoming a proper Minister!"

Sirius stuck his nose in the air and snootily said. "Did you not hear Director Bones Regent Potter, we did _not_ blackmail our esteemed Minister Fudge, we offered him the opportunity to redeem himself, while taking the precaution of keeping the evidence in case he failed to do so!"

"Oh can it Black, it was blackmail, pure and simple, but it _was_ the best piece of blackmail I've ever seen."

He smirked at her. "I must admit that I _was_ rather proud of it... Okay, now that we've locked in Fudge's support for Frank and Newt to replace Crouch and Macmillan, are we going to wait until the next scheduled Wizengamot session or call an emergency session to get it over and done with quickly? I must admit that I'm looking forward to seeing how many Death Eaters will be stupid enough to turn up. We've already heard from Gringotts that Malfoy, Nott, Avery, the Carrows and McNair have all tried to clean out their vaults and run, and apparently they weren't too happy to be reminded about the law that required their vaults to be locked down until they were cleared of the charges against them. I'm betting that Lucy and Nott at least will have enough gold stashed away to get out of Britain but I can't help thinking that Crabbe and Goyle will be stupid enough to believe that they can get off, unless some of the others managed to get it through their thick heads that they'll be dead if they testify about anyone else, of course. It will also be interesting to see whether Lucy bothers to take Cissa and the brat with him when he runs."

Amelia was shaking her head at the way Sirius was going on about Malfoy, but answered him. "I don't want to give any of them the chance to try and gather support. At the moment we've got the votes and vaults of the known Death Eaters locked down so they can't do much, if we call for an emergency session we can charge Crouch, Macmillan and the other Ministry officials that we've got evidence against and use Fudge and the Wizengamot to push through our chosen replacements for the ones who can cause trouble before they have any chance to regroup. Most of the ones in the Ministry lost a lot when those transfers from the Ministry vaults were reversed so it will hopefully take them a while to scrape up enough gold to buy the support they need. I say we move quickly before they get the chance."

Sirius nodded, musing. "It will be interesting to see whether Bagnold will make any real effort to bail her people out, or she'll just run before they get a chance to drag her down with them."

Lily snorted in a rather unladylike manner. "Oh please! That bitch has never cared about anyone but herself, the first time one of them asks for help she'll take her gold and run!"

He grinned at her. "Are you sure enough of that to make a wager on it?"

"What stakes, and what odds will you give me?"

"Whatever you want, and why don't we make it five to one?"

She gave him an evil smile and pulled out a communications mirror, when the call was answered she asked. "Hi Sweetie, are you willing to lend Mummy Two Hundred Thousand Galleons for a few days until I have a chance to move some money around?"

He sounded suspicious as he answered. "Sure Mum, but what's it for?"

"Uncle Sirius was silly enough to offer me five to one odds on a bet that ex Minister Bagnold _won't_ take her gold and head for the hills as soon as the ones who paid her off to get their positions at the Ministry start asking for help because we're putting them up on charges."

They all heard Harry and the girls' laughter at that, so they must have been with him. "I think it's our duty to teach Uncle Sirius to stop making silly bets like that Mum, can you put me down for another Two Hundred Thousand on top of your bet..." He paused as the girls said something. "Sorry, can you make that Four Hundred Thousand please? The girls want in on this too. With any luck losing Three Million Galleons will be enough to make Uncle Sirius learn not to be so silly. As there isn't much chance of us losing, you don't need to worry about paying me back until the bet has been determined."

Lily looked a challenge at Sirius and he nodded in a huff, so she laughed and said. "Done! I confirm that I am borrowing Two Hundred Thousand Galleons from you until after the bet has been determined and betting an additional Four Hundred Thousand Galleons on your and the girls' behalf. Thanks Sweetie, I'll see you at dinner."

Harry said goodbye with a laugh and they finished the call.

Sirius was looking dumbfounded as Lily asked Amelia. "Will you witness our wager please Regent Bones? The wager is that Duke Potter and I are betting a total of Six Hundred Thousand Galleons with Duke Black at five to one odds, meaning that Duke Black will be required to pay us Three Million Galleons if any of the ones we're charging at the upcoming emergency Wizengamot session attempts to get Millicent Bagnold to bail them out and her reaction is to take her gold and leave rather than bailing them out."

Amelia grinned. "Your wager is duly noted Regent Potter. Shall the amounts being wagered be placed in escrow or are both of you prepared to accept each other's promise to pay over the other party's winnings if they lose?"

Lily raised an eyebrow at Sirius. "I am quite prepared to accept Duke Black's word if he will accept mine?"

He was looking rather disgruntled but he formally promised to honour the wager and pay Regent Potter and Duke Potter Three Million Galleons if they won the wager and accept her word that they would pay him Six Hundred Thousand Galleons if he won, then muttered. "It was only supposed to be a joke, you women are evil and so is my Godson! I obviously need to get myself a new Godson. Neville is a nice boy, I'm sure _he'd_ never do something like this to his Godfather!"

Amelia laughed at him. "You never did know when to stop Sirius. All you had to do was apologise and call off the bet before Lily got off the call to Harry she would have agreed, but you didn't. So you only have yourself to blame!"

She shook her head in exasperated amusement. With anyone else, casually betting between Two Hundred Thousand and Three Million Galleons (One to Fifteen Million Pounds in Muggle currency) like that would have been a joke, or lunacy, but when it was The Black and The Potter, it was just the stakes for a friendly wager. The Black and Potter families were the richest of their world, they could easily buy small countries on a whim and both had done so in the past, so it was no more than a pittance to them. This would have been a regular occurrence if James had lived, and it was obvious that Sirius wasn't in the least upset about the bet, only that Lily and Harry had successfully called his bluff and turned the joke back on him.

* * *

The Emergency Wizengamot session panned out quite well for the family. Derrick Flint, Thomas Crabbe and Gregory Goyle Senior _were_ stupid enough to turn up (Sirius should have tried to get someone to bet on _that_) and were forced to testify under Veritaserum. As well as the three of them being sent through the Veil of Death for their crimes, their testimonies and memories were accepted as sufficient evidence to get arrest warrants approved for the score of other marked Death Eaters who had failed to appear, as well as bans on their families holding seats in the Wizengamot for as long as the current head of family lived and seizure of their Gringotts vaults was certainly a win. While they were wanted criminals they were denied access to transfer titles or assign voting proxies, so their votes ceased to exist in the Wizengamot until they died and their designated heirs were accepted to take over the titles.

On top of this, eight senior Ministry officials and ex Senior Undersecretary to the Minister Delores Umbrage were all found guilty of corruption and criminal charges, fined, sentenced to Azkaban for a few months or years and given lifetime bans against working for or with the Ministry in any capacity.

This let the family use the Pure-Bloods' trick that Malfoy thought had guaranteed that his heir would become Duke Black against them. Part of the Druid Laws mandated that when magic found someone guilty of a crime serious enough to be imprisoned, they were stripped of their titles. Under the old rules, the Head of a Family could only be tried by the Druid and then Wizards Council and only serious crimes carried the sentence of imprisonment because it was effectively for life. The idea was that if the head of a family was sentenced to a crime serious enough to justify imprisonment they would be stripped of their titles, allowing the family to be taken over by someone else who would hopefully lead it in a different direction from where the criminal had been leading it.

After the Druids had been pressured into expanding the Wizards Council into the much larger Wizengamot which was much more mired down in politics though, this was turned into a popular method to take over a Family or House. Buy the allegiance of someone in the family and then set up scenarios to put the Head of the House or Family and anyone else in the way of the title on trial for minor crimes which had a prison term of a few months or so (something which hadn't existed when the Druid Laws were created) so that they lost their titles and the bought man could take over the family.

The thing was, the inheritance tests they'd done had shown that some of the Squib lines of people in their group actually had stronger claims to the titles of their families than the 'Pure-Blood' lines who had recently held the titles, so the Senior Noble and Ancient House of Macmillan, Noble House of Smith and Minor Houses of Crouch, Flint, Crabbe and Goyle were all successfully claimed by right of blood after the previous Heads of House were sent to Azkaban. They only got three Minor Houses from the Dark Faction, but what they took from the Light Faction was significant because the House of Macmillan had been the most powerful House they had.

Lily had fun stringing Sirius along for a while about the Bagnold bet before she admitted that the Three Million Galleons had been donated towards helping set up the new Werewolf Health and Liaison offices they'd planned for Frank and Newt's departments to stop him sulking about it. After that Harry and Sirius each added a few million more to get things moving in the right direction more quickly. The rest of Sirius' pique disappeared when Lily reminded him that there was actually a silver lining in Bagnold running off to the Continent with her gold like that, because she was a lot smarter than most of the Pure-Bloods which meant that she was more dangerous. Her leaving Magical Britain got rid of what was probably the most dangerous of the Pure-Blood puppet masters, which meant that they wouldn't need to waste so much time keeping an eye on her, giving them more time for the other things they were working on.

With Frank and Newt taking over the two key departments, the revision of the werewolf and other 'creature' and muggle laws moved forward quickly and Remus was able to be openly accepted as a Thane for Sirius, Harry and the girls' houses. While it wasn't made public, Andie had also been made Steward for Harry and the girls' houses because Lily, Xeno and Pandora were quite ready to admit that they would never be able to match a Black in the Wizengamot or Noble House politics.

* * *

Harry laughed as he rolled away from the spot where Agaroth, Gringotts' young Swedish Short-Snout, had tried to catch him in mid-air and darted off. This was their last game of tag before he and the rest of the kids had to head off to Hogwarts and he wanted to make the most of it. The girls were back at the Manor following him through their link as they didn't want to set off Agaroth's territorial instincts by having females around, and they would have had trouble keeping up with Harry and Agaroth in dragon form anyway. None of them wanted this episode of their lives to end, in the last ten months since Harry's Mum was returned and rescued him from Petunia and her family in the 'real' world, Harry and Luna had lived seven years, a little over six for Hermione, and aside from the first seven months of painful physical reconstruction for Harry they'd loved it. They'd been together pretty much all day, every day, and while others may not have enjoyed studying and training hard for sixteen to eighteen hours a day most of the time, _they_ did.

For the time they'd 'lived' in their trunks, the atmosphere in the trunks had been adjusted to make use of the High/Low training method which Lily explained had been developed at the Mexico Olympics in '68, their sleeping chambers set to match the air at 2500 metres and the rest of their trunk environments at 1000 metres. While the physical health and fitness benefits they gained from this were increasingly obvious over the 'years' they lived in this environment, not many of the others adopted it as they gave up before they got acclimatised to it because it was uncomfortable, apparently the people in the Wizarding world weren't the only ones who tended to avoid things that were hard work.

Of course, while Harry had been having the time of his life and Fudge's survival instincts had kept him on the straight and narrow so he'd only needed the occasional nudge from Horace, Amelia, Saul or Frank to get him back on track when he was being tempted to waver, things hadn't all gone their way. As the adults had predicted, even with all the proof of Dumbledore's crimes against Harry, Sirius and so many others, the sheeple who made up most of Magical Britain had gone back to believing what the 'Leader of the Light' and the Pure-Blood owned Daily Prophet were telling them.

The rules of bigotry worked the same in the Magical world as they did in the Non-Magical world, the most ordinary people with nothing to offer to distinguish themselves will grab at _anything_ that they can point to and say 'I'm better than them because….' In the Magical world, they didn't need to rely on skin colour for this (though bigotry on the basis of skin colour was far more prevalent than they were willing to admit in merry old England where they didn't trust darkies and those other foreigners), because they could use magic! Magic was perfect for that, as it let the Pure-blood guy in the pub who would never amount to anything more than a factory worker or some other part of the blue collar masses in the Non-Magical world have something to hold up and say that he was _special_! It didn't matter if he was as common as dirt and had trouble adding up the shopping list, he was a wizard and so had his Da and Grandad been, so he was as good as Nobility!

Those uppity bastards who blew in from the Muggle world didn't recognise that though, who were they to show off how much more magic they could do than him? They didn't have the heritage he did, they came from common _Muggles_ for Merlin's sake and they dared to think they were better than him? He'd show them!… Well you get the point, just like in the Non-Magical world where they'd needed things like the Jim Crow laws to keep them others in their place, your average Pure-Blood wasn't about to let go of the idea that their heritage of being able to trace their magical family back for generations made them better, even if they couldn't spell heritage or generations. These were the sheeple who made up much of Magical Britain, so it was hardly a surprise that they listened to Dumbledore, the Daily Prophet and anyone else who told them that their magical heritage made them better than those who came from the Muggle world, and that was why they were prepared to lap up everything Dumbledore said about Lily, how Harry was being corrupted by her and how Sirius was obviously damaged by his time in Azkaban because he tried to deny his heritage as a _proper_ Pure-Blood Lord.

Needless to say, this got up most of the family's noses, especially Harry and Hermione who were sick listening to these inbred idiots maligning their families, so they were planning to make an impact when they got to Hogwarts. Lily for one had no problem with the fact that 'impact' was all too likely to be literal because Harry and Hermione had her and Jane's tempers.


	4. Hogwarts

**I think I've found a way to annoy the trolls, because it seems that if you block them they have to get their little friends to take over. Best to block them by URL though because the more clever ones seem to make the spelling of their pen names misleading…. and follow the story so they'll know when to 'review'. Of course, that may have just been laziness because his 'review' was little more than 'what he said', but he did manage to pick up on an error I made. I don't know what it was, but something made me go back and change 'Umbridge' to 'Umbrage' when I was writing the last chapter. I canna be bothered going back to change it again so it'll have to stay that way now.**

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to anything from JKR's stories.**

They made sure that they got to Kings Cross Station and Platform 9 ¾ early so they could claim enough compartments together to avoid breaking up the group. With over thirty students they'd need at least five or six compartments to take everyone so they just claimed the last carriage on the Hogwarts Express and cast notice-me-nots over it to keep everyone else away. This meant that by the time most people arrived at Platform 9 ¾, the Express was apparently one carriage shorter.

Harry snorted when Dora asked what the point of following the tradition of going to Hogwarts on the Express was if they made sure that they were separated from the rest of the students on the train.

"So that we can honestly say that we _did_ follow tradition when Dumbledore and his ilk try and tell everyone that we're throwing all their hallowed traditions back in their faces… Hallowed traditions, that's a laugh! The Hogwarts Express hasn't existed for much more than a hundred and fifty years but they act as though it's been a cornerstone of Magical Britain's culture from the very beginning! Students were being brought to Hogwarts on magical ships coming through the underwater passage into Black Lake for at least four times that long!"

"And as for keeping separate from the other students on the train, how much mingling with the other students did you do on your previous trips on the Express Dora? From what Mum and the others told me students generally settle into a compartment with maybe three or four others and don't have anything to do with anyone else other than to maybe say Hi if they see them on the way to the loo unless someone comes to their compartment to bother them. How is what we're doing that different, except for the fact that we've put up notice me nots to keep out the ones who want bother us? We'll be removing the notice me nots except for the ones on the front of the carriage as soon as we get under way and most of us will be under glamours to make us look like First Years when we get to Hogsmeade so the only thing of note will be how many new students there are."

Dora realised that she couldn't refute Harry's logic, he was right about what happened on the Express and while like most, she'd never heard of magical ships being used to bring students to Hogwarts before, when she stopped to think about it, railroads had only been in widespread use in Britain for a hundred and fifty years or so, so they _had_ to have used something else before that. She didn't doubt what Harry was telling her the truth about the ships, but now she was wondering where she could find out more about them, and see what type of ships they'd been using.

They removed the final notice-me-nots and cast the glamours as they were pulling into Hogsmeade and as Harry had said, the only thing that caused a stir were the number of unsorted students. The ones from the non-magical world couldn't help sniggering when Harry waved a hand at the officious prefect who was demanding to know where they'd come from and said "These aren't the droids you're looking for" as he cast a wandless non-verbal compulsion on the boy to ignore them and go away. After the prefect wandered off, looking confused, they had to try and explain the significance of what Harry said and how it had came from the Star Wars movie to the ones who were raised in the magical world.

Hagrid started calling for the First Years at that point and most of them headed that way while Dora and the others who'd been to Hogwarts before headed for the carriages. Seeing so many First Years was a surprise for Hagrid, but looking down at the dock he saw that Hogwarts had been expecting them because there were plenty of boats.

* * *

Minerva had as much trouble keeping a straight face as the students in their group as the jumped up little brats from the Pure-Blood Houses pushed past the ones glamoured as First Years in cheap robes to arrogantly introduce themselves to the ones in expensive robes. Neville, Susan and Astoria Greengrass still looked young enough to pass as First Years, so they were the ones who faced the brats down.

Neville looked dismissively down at the hand that was stuck out at him and then raised his head to look the boy in front of him in the eye. "Towler, is it? I presume that means you are from the Junior Noble House of Towler then?"

The boy flushed at the insulting way he was being addressed. "I am _Heir_ to the Noble House of Towler!"

"Is the House of Towler so impoverished that it cannot afford to have its Heir properly educated in the etiquette of the Noble Houses?"

He waited for Towler to start to respond then cut him off. "Have you at least learned the hierarchy of the Noble Houses of Magical Britain?"

"From your expression, you are either constipated, or indicating ignorance of what I am talking about, so I will explain…."

He raised his hand so that his fingers were horizontal, just above his head.

"The highest tier of the Noble Houses of Magical Britain are the four Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter, Peverell, Black and Glynn..."

He lowered his hand to beside his ear.

"The next tier below them are the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses… These include the Houses of Bones, Greengrass and Longbottom."

He indicated Susan, Astoria and himself as he named their Houses and then returned his hand to his chin level.

"Then there are the Junior Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses, the Senior Noble and Ancient Druid Houses, Senior Noble and Ancient Houses, Junior Noble and Ancient Druid Houses, Junior Noble and Ancient Houses, Ancient Druid Houses, Most Ancient Druid Families, Ancient Druid Families…. then Junior Noble Houses, as there are no Senior Noble Houses… And finally Minor Houses... well Wizard Families are at the very bottom of our hierarchy but they aren't really counted in these things."

Neville had lowered his hand each time he identified the next successive tier, so it was beside his thigh when he referred to Junior Noble Houses and he bent down a little to move it closer to his knee when he mentioned Minor Houses.

Towler was looking confused and angry by this point, but Neville ignored that as he continued.

"If you had been given the expected education in Noble House etiquette Mister Towler, you would have known that any social interactions must _always_ be initiated by the superior house, so as your house is…."

Astoria piped up. "Nine levels below the House of Longbottom."

He bowed his head to her. "Thank you Baroness Greengrass, I must admit that I'd forgotten how many it was."

She gave him an impish smile as she curtsied. "You are most welcome Baron Longbottom."

Neville turned back to Towler. "As the Junior Noble House of Towler is _nine_ levels below that of the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Longbottom, approaching me as a peer if not a superior as you did is an insult to the House of Longbottom that we would be well within our rights to require formally penalties of the House of Towler for. So I would suggest that you withdraw before your behaviour manages to raise my ire enough to contact the Head of my House and call for him to do so Mister Towler."

Towler started to draw himself up to give Neville a serve for that but one of his friends was either brighter or better educated than him because he grabbed his arm and dragged him away before he could do anything even more stupid.

* * *

Now that the floor show was finished, Minerva gave the required 'Your House is your family' spiel and then directed the students to proceed into the Great Hall. As soon as the other new students were out of sight, all of those who were under glamours cancelled them, then they entered the Great Hall by effective age, youngest first.

Dumbledore leapt to his feet, demanding to know what was going on here when he saw them entering the Great Hall, because this was the first indication he'd had that this sorting would be anything out of the ordinary.

Harry was having fun, because he hadn't been face to face with the old bastard since his Mum was returned and he wanted to hurt him. He waved dismissively at Dumbledore and said.

"We are here to begin our education at Hogwarts of course! If you're so addled that you cannot work that out old man, you have no place being here!"

"You will give me the respect I'm due as Hogwarts' Headmaster! Who are you and what are you doing in my school?"

Harry laughed mockingly. "_Your_ school?"

He turned to where Minerva was. "I must apologise Lady McGonagall. I believed that your description of him was coloured by your aggravation at having to deal with his arrogance and unprofessionalism, but you are correct, he is indeed delusional."

She nodded to him, accepting the apology. "That is quite alright your Grace, I can understand that it was something you needed to see for yourself."

Harry nodded in recognition of her concession and muttered as if to himself, even though everyone in the Great Hall heard him. "As to the old fool's question, I believe that we'll be better served by providing incontrovertible proof of my and my betrotheds' identity so…." He raised his head. "Lady Hogwarts, please present to us the Stone of Truth!"

There was a shimmering in front of the High Table Dais as a crystal on a pedestal like the one in the Wizengamot chamber appeared out of thin air.

Dumbledore shouted. "What is this?" and Harry made a show of shaking his head sadly.

"How have the people of Magical Britain not seen how far he has fallen?"

He looked at Dumbledore and spoke as if explaining something to a child. "As you presided over the Wizengamot as its Chief Warlock for almost forty five years Mister Dumbledore, I am shocked that you cannot recognise a Stone of Truth. Surely you know that the Great Hall here at Hogwarts was the first official court of Magical Britain and the dais where you are now sitting was where the Wizards Council sat to preside over matters of import for Magical Britain? The Stone of Truth has never left its home here, it was just _elsewhere_ until it was called for by one with the proper authority..."

He held up a hand. "And before you ask why I have called for the Stone of Truth, your attitude makes it quite clear that you will not accept my true identity without proof, and what better way to prove it than with a Stone of Truth?"

With that he removed the masking on his major house rings and made his way to the Stone of Truth with Hermione and Luna a couple of steps behind.

Harry went first, placing his hands on the crystal and a voice rang out. "Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin and their Associated Houses."

He stepped back, holding out a hand to Hermione as the nominally elder of his two betrothed and Hermione stepped up to the Stone, placing her hands on it. The Stone spoke. "Countess Hermione Jane Granger Hufflepuff, Head of the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Hufflepuff and Junior Noble and Ancient Druid House of Dagworth Granger and their Associated Houses, Betrothed of Duke Henry James Potter Peverell."

Hermione released the Stone and stepped back, waving Luna forward, and when she took her place at the Stone its voice rang out again. "Countess Luna Pandora Lovegood Ravenclaw, Head of the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Ravenclaw and Heiress to the Junior Noble and Ancient Druid House of Lovegood and their Associated Houses, Betrothed of Duke Henry James Potter Peverell."

Luna released the stone and moved to stand demurely beside Hermione.

Harry thanked Hogwarts, asking her to send the Stone of Truth back to where it had come from before. Half of the people in the Great Hall were freaked out by the change from a male to a female voice as Hogwarts responded with "I am your Servant My Lord, My Ladies" before the Stone flickered and disappeared.

Then Harry turned to Dumbledore, who had been staring at him in shock ever since the Stone identified him, refusing to believe that this young Lord could be the Potter boy. He looked almost twice the Potter brat's nine years and he was tall, strong and haughty, every inch the epitome of a young Pure-Blood Lord, there was no way that the stunted physical wreck whose magic he'd last bound eighteen months ago could have turned into _this_!

"We have caused quite enough interruption to the sorting ceremony already old man. You have now heard proof of who my betrothed and I are from the Stone of Truth, so you will hold any further questions about our identity and claims of this being _your_ school until after the sorting ceremony has been completed."

When Dumbledore went to respond Harry quickly dropped the Elder Wand into his hand and silenced and immobilised him before turning to Minerva and apologising for the interruption, asking her to proceed with the sorting. Openly using the Elder Wand like that was another shot at Dumbledore, because they knew he had spent over a month trying to find out what happened to it after Harry called it to him as one of the Peverell Heirlooms six months ago in the 'real' world.

* * *

The rest of the sorting went smoothly, though Pomona couldn't help giving Minerva and Filius a triumphant smile when Harry, Hermione and Luna were all sorted into Hufflepuff. She knew that they'd merely chosen to be placed together and Myrddin, the sorting hat, had bowed to the wishes of the Master and Mistresses of Hogwarts, but that wouldn't stop her having fun with her friends about it.

She didn't deign to include Slughorn, who'd returned to the roles of Potions Master and House Master of Slytherin because that Snape creature had been tried and sent through the Veil of Death for his crimes at the end of June, as the man was as slimy as he'd ever been but she did share a smile with Bathilda, whom Dumbledore had scrabbled to hire the week before after Binns suddenly decided to pass over and disappeared with hardly a word, and Augusta, who he'd hurriedly hired to teach Wizarding Culture when the Hogwarts Board of Governors told him that it _would_ be replacing the cancelled Divination course in August.

She also smiled to herself about the fireworks that would come after the Sorting Feast when Dumbledore discovered that the Duke and his betrothed, plus the other Lords and Ladies and their vassals and retainers and the tutors they'd brought in for the courses they were covering privately, were all being housed in the Druids Tower that Hogwarts had made up for them. Oh yes, this was going to be so much fun!

Harry indicated that he had no intention of releasing Dumbledore once the sorting was finished, so Minerva made the staff and other announcements then called for the food to appear, and at the end of the Sorting Feast sent the rest of the students off to their house dorms. The House Masters and Mistresses were asked to stay, even Slughorn, and Harry also made a point of asking Bathilda and Augusta to remain, to assist with clarifying any historical matters that may arise, then the doors of the Great Hall were sealed and Harry released Dumbledore.

He let the old fool rant and rave for less than a minute before silencing him again, calling for Hogwarts to return the Stone of Truth so that she would be able to speak.

"Were you taught no manners at _all_ old man? Even the lowliest bumpkin should know that that type of language is totally unacceptable to be using in front of ladies! As you have proven that you cannot keep a civil tongue in your mouth, you will remain silenced while we explain a number of things to you."

"Firstly, to get the matter of the Elder Wand out of the way. Yes, I have reclaimed the Elder Wand as it is a Peverell heirloom. It was never rightly your's because its true master has always been the rightful Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Peverell, which is of course, me. This will not change and I would strongly advise you _not_ to try my patience by ever bringing the matter up."

"Secondly. Yes, I was behind having your creature Snape tried and executed for his crimes. It was unconscionable for a foul creature like that to get off scott free without being punished for his crimes merely because you wished to keep him around for your own amusement and pleasure. Quite aside from his crimes against the House of Potter, we have proof of further crimes he committed right here under your nose and _I_ believe with your collusion. If I _ever_ discover that you have raised the matter of Severus Snape or attempted to solicit sympathy for him, you will be questioned under Veritaserum and if my suspicions are correct, tried and executed for your crimes."

"Thirdly. Yes, it was the Potter Family who instigated the review which had your ridiculous and useless Divination course cancelled and Sybil Trelawney dismissed. We are well aware that you created the course purely to give that fraud and therefore the so called prophecy she told to you a veneer of legitimacy. We regarded it an insult to the House of Potter that the fraud who was in part responsible for The Potter's murder would receive succour in the school whose Founders are included among our ancestors. That insult was _not_ going to be allowed to continue."

"We also instigated the Department of Magical Education's revision of the equally useless and century out of date Muggle Studies course into the new Muggle Culture course and the reinstatement of the Wizarding Culture course that you removed from Hogwarts' curriculum to replace Divination…. And I requested that Hogwarts convince the Binns Ghost to move on, apparently that took some doing because he was adamant that he was staying on as a personal favour to you. The salary for the History of Magic position that has been going into your vaults ever since he died has now been recovered and returned to Hogwarts' vaults."

"And finally…. Hopefully, between them, Lady Hogwarts and Madams Bagshot and Longbottom will be able to supply any necessary historical information on this, but the long and the short of it is that the Hogwarts Charter guarantees the right of Heads and Heirs of Most Ancient and Ancient Noble Houses to require suitable and separate accommodation to be provided for themselves and their families, retinues and vassals. The relevant information to support our claim for this has been supplied to Hogwarts and accepted and Hogwarts has provided a tower to meet our needs. The Hogwarts Charter also guarantees the right for students to employ private tutors for any courses where they believe that the normal Hogwarts teachers or curriculum do not adequately meet their needs, we will be availing ourselves of this right as well."

"I am about to remove the spells silencing you Mister Dumbledore, I strongly suggest that you mind your tongue this time because if there is any further display of the type of inappropriate language you uttered before I may make a mistake and silence you permanently. Do you understand?"

Dumbledore nodded angrily and Harry removed the silencing spell, but made a point of openly holding the Elder Wand in his hand.

The first words that came out of Dumbledore's mouth were. "I will not allow you to do this in my school!"

Harry shook his head in exasperation and asked. "Lady Hogwarts, could you tell us who it is that you answer to please?"

"Certainly My Lord. As always, my first allegiance is to my Founders and their true Heirs, who are currently yourself, as Lord Gryffindor Slytherin, and the Ladies Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Where their orders do not countermand those of my Lord and Ladies, I obey the current Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress and other staff."

"Thank you Lady Hogwarts….. Are you now prepared to you desist with this fallacy that Hogwarts is _your_ school Mister Dumbledore, or will it require Madams Bagshot and Longbottom to quote you chapter and verse from the Hogwarts Charter until you accept the truth of what Lady Hogwarts has informed us? I will warn you that continuing to question Lady Hogwarts' word may well anger her, _as well as_ my Ladies and myself."

Dumbledore just stared at him, unable to speak, so Harry looked at the others. "Does anyone else have any questions they wish to raise while Mister Dumbledore works out what he wants to ask?"

For all the persona he projected, Slughorn wasn't really a fool, and he'd noted the point about private tutoring, even if it had gone over Dumbledore's head.

"May we ask which classes you will be taking separately from the rest of the school Harry?"

Harry went to respond but Minerva cut him off. "Horace, while Duke Potter has agreed to allow the staff and students a certain amount of latitude in public, allowing them to address and refer to him as Mister Potter, there are no ordinary students here at the moment and until such a time as he chooses to formally give you leave to use any other form of address, he is to be addressed as and referred to as Duke Potter in private settings such as this!"

Slughorn gave Harry a swarmy look, obviously expecting him to tell him that it was quite alright to call him Harry but he was met with a cold look from those killing curse green eyes.

"Thank you for that timely reminder Professor McGonagall. Professor Slughorn, and you especially Professor Dumbledore! Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, Bagshot and Longbottom have all known me since I was a babe and are effectively part of my extended family as I only have my Great Uncle Arcturus and no actual aunts, uncles or grandparents left other than that bitch I was dumped on as an infant and she is dead to me! Our accepted familial connection gives _them_ the right to address me informally but everyone else has to earn that right!"

"Presuming to address me by a familiar form of my given name due to Magical Britain believing that it in some way owns Harry Potter because of the fictions Albus Dumbledore spread about how I, rather than my mother, supposedly brought about the downfall of Tom Riddle has in fact reduced the likelihood that you will _ever_ be granted permission to call me Harry Professor Slughorn. In circumstances such as this you will address me and refer to me as Your Grace, Duke Potter or Duke Potter Peverell _only_, in the midst of the general student body I will allow you to address and refer to me as Mister Potter, but do _not_ presume to address me in that familiar form of my name again!"

He held their gaze until they both looked away, cowed, and then answered the actual question posed. "With regard to your question, at this time my betrothed and I will be using private tutors for Defence Against the Dark Arts, Astronomy, Potions, Care of Magical Creatures, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, we may expand this to include other subjects if the curriculum does not meet our needs."

"But… But you can't take potions with anyone else!"

The look in those green eyes almost made Slughorn wet himself. "Oh? What, pray tell, gives you the impression that you can stop me exercising my right to employ a private tutor like any other student if I do not believe that the regular classes will meet my needs?"

"Albus promised me that you'd be my student if I came back! I can make you into as good a potioner as your mother!"

"For a start, you'd have to be a complete and utter moron to believe that any of Albus Dumbledore's promises are worth a pinch of Crup shit, let alone Dragon shit, but I am rather surprised that you have not managed to work out who will be teaching us Potions yet. In case you weren't keeping up with the news in your field at the end of the war, my Mum had well and truly surpassed your reputation long before _he…._" hooking a thumb at Dumbledore "set all of us up to be attacked by Tom Riddle, so Mum's going to remain as our Potions teacher."

Slughorn was affronted by the slur to his reputation and the blunt statement that his student had surpassed him (even if he knew that she had), but there was something else bothering him more about what had been said.

"That's twice now you've referred to Tom Riddle, why are you talking about him?"

Harry laughed, but there was no mirth in it. "Don't you pay attention to _anything_ unless you think there's something in it for you? I'm sure that even the Daily Prophet mentioned it before their Death Eater owners told them to shut up about it. Tom Marvolo Riddle was the birth name of the Common Muggle-Born Orphan Bastard that the Pure-Blood supremacists were following under a made up name that came from an anagram of his real name, _Lord_ Voldemort."

Slughorn almost fainted. "_What?_ You Know Who was Tom Riddle, the Head Boy here at Hogwarts in Nineteen Forty Five?"

"I didn't know he was the Head Boy, but yes, Tom Riddle was _Lord_ Voldemort's real name."

Slughorn squeaked at that and scurried out of the Great Hall, Harry distractedly released the doors with a wave of his hand to let the buffoon out but luckily Dumbledore was looking the other way so he didn't see it.

* * *

They hashed over a few more details then Harry released Dumbledore and Minerva, Pomona and Filius escorted the group to the Druids Tower, leaving the old bastard to scurry back to his office, trying to work out how to recover something out of the situation.

This was a disaster! _Nothing_ had gone the way it was supposed to! For a start, while he was half expecting Potter to turn up early, he was supposed to be ten or eleven and still broken so he'd be easily malleable, _not_ a young Lord in full control of his physical, magical and political power. Holding the four houses of the Founders between him and those two young witches was even more of a disaster, not to mention the fact that he had the Elder Wand…. And it wasn't just Potter who was a problem, the Longbottom and Zabini Heirs were there as well and Zabini looked like he'd be as much trouble as Potter, Longbottom at least was closer to what he had expected to arrive as a First Year, but he was physically imposing for his age and in control of his magical and political power as well.

Just having Longbottom here after what his father did after he took over the Department of International Magical Cooperation was an affront! Just days after he took over, he had the gall to _summon_ Albus to his office and informed him that it had been discovered and confirmed that he had falsified his name on the contracts instating him as Magical Britain's representative to the International Confederation of Wizards. Given that this was a magical contract, falsifying his name had invalidated the contract so he had never been properly accepted as Magical Britain's representative to the ICW and was therefore dismissed. He rubbed salt in the wound by pointing out the falsifying details on a magical contract was a serious offence and therefore he was also banned from working for or with the Ministry of Magic or Wizengamot of Magical Britain in any official capacity for life.

Albus had failed to keep his temper in check at that and had raged at Longbottom that he had most definitely not falsified his name and would be requiring significant compensation from the House of Longbottom for this insult, but Longbottom cut him off. "What is your name?"

Dumbledore drew himself up. "_I am __Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore___, __Grand Sorcerer_, Headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and __Wizard__ry__, __Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot of Magical Britain, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and holder of the Order of Merlin, First Class!_"

"Oh dear, you really are deluded, aren't you? Let's go through that bit by bit shall we? For a start, I have a copy of your official birth records right here in front of me and they clearly state that your true name is in fact Albus _Percival_ Dumbledore, and that's the reason you're here in my office. When the name issue was discovered, your contract was re examined and it was confirmed that it had never been magically accepted. For the rest of it…. Grand Sorcerer? As far as I know that still applies ….. and yes, you are Headmaster at Hogwarts…. For now anyway…. But you were dismissed from your position as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot months ago. The fact that we were forced to dismiss you as Magical Britain's representative to the ICW means that you can no longer hold any official positions in the ICW, and when we informed them of what we had discovered, they stated that you would be banned from having anything to do with the ICW for life too…. Apparently Magical Italy had also been pushing for that for some reason."

"And then there's your Order of Merlin….. You _do_ realise that due to that fact that it was issued to the false name of Albus Percival _Wulfric Brian_ Dumbledore, it is invalid and has therefore been revoked, don't you? The Minister has officially advised me that seeing as it was invalidated by an act of fraud on your part, your Order of Merlin will _not_ be reissued in your real name. This of course means that the Minor House of Dumbledore has reverted to the Dumbledore Family…"

"What were you thinking Mister Dumbledore? To throw everything away for a silly act of meaningless vanity? You were a Professor at Hogwarts from Nineteen Twelve, Deputy Headmaster from Nineteen Thirty Five, and _Headmaster_ from Nineteen Forty Five. You were _also_ the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the ICW from Nineteen Forty Five to early Nineteen Eighty Nine, so you were directing legal decisions for not only Magical Britain, but a significant proportion of the Magical world for nearly forty five years…. How could you hold such important positions for so long without knowing the most basic tenets of magical law? You have not only shamed yourself Mister Dumbledore, you have shamed Magical Britain and I for one cannot forgive you for that!"

The upstart had tossed him out of his office like a common miscreant after that, and Cornelius had refused to see him, they had even had to gall to have orders posted to ban him from entering the Ministry building! How could he get people to accept that he had been too busy to be bothered with minor details like that if he couldn't get in to see them? To accuse him of fraud was simply ridiculous! He had done nothing wrong, he had merely made a few additions to his name to ensure that it properly reflected his true importance. His father had been a simple man of no real vision, he couldn't see that a name like Albus Percival Dumbledore was far too pedestrian for the great wizard his son and heir was destined to become, so after he gained his first position at Hogwarts and had access to correct that, he did.

If that wasn't bad enough though, Longbottom had replaced him with that Veela _Zabini_! He should have found a way to get rid of Seren Ifan when she was at Hogwarts, because creatures like her were contaminating the magical bloodlines, but he hadn't believed that the rumours he heard were enough to act on at the time. He had forgotten all about her until he was introduced to Conte Zabini, the new Ambassador from Magical Italy in 1980 and his wife was strangely familiar, so he had people look into who she was. He was disgusted when word came back that Contessa Zabini had in fact been Seren Ifan from Wales and she had met and seduced the Conte while she was in Italy with her father on a business trip after she finished at Hogwarts. What's more she had just had twins, so she was contaminating another old magical bloodline, even if it was foreign.

He decided that he couldn't continue to turn a blind eye to this blight on the magical blood of Britain, so he had arranged for Snape to slip word to Voldemort that a Veela family had been discovered hiding in the Italian Ambassador's residence. The Ambassador wasn't supposed to be there when the Death Eaters attacked, he was supposed to be in meetings with the Ministry. Albus rationalised that he was young enough to get over the Veela and start a new family, perhaps even with a proper British witch, in fact he had lined up a few of them to console Conte Zabini and help him get over his grief.

But apparently one of the Veela's spawn had been ill so Zabini had postponed the meeting so he could help look after his child. That unfortunately meant that Conte Zabini was killed trying to hold off the Death Eaters, along with most of the staff, Ifan's parents and the daughter, but somehow the Veela and her son got away!

* * *

Pandora and her other friends had looked after Seren's son for the next few years because she lost control of her Veela in her grief, which led to her having four more husbands dying happy before she managed to rein in her Veela and get control of herself again. Seren had _tried_ to control her Veela, making a point of seeking out older gentlemen of character and nobility who could hopefully get past being ruled by their sexual desires, but her uncontrollable allure overrode that and they had inevitably gone out in a blaze of glory. The ones who didn't pass straight away had actually _thanked_ her for making their last days such a joy.

When she finally came back to herself, on top of the well established business empires, fortunes and titles of her family's Junior Noble and Ancient Druid House of Ifan and the Italian Noble House of Zabini, Seren had the substantial business empires and fortunes of her four other husbands. This meant that she and her son, now Conte Blaise Zabini, Head of the Italian Noble House of Zabini and Baron Ifan, Head of the British Junior Noble and Ancient Druid House of Ifan, were quite wealthy… Not Potter or Black wealthy, but probably richer than anyone else in Magical Britain.

Seren dedicated herself to being a good mother and managing her son's prospects, and she had the intelligence and political acumen to be running their sizable international business empire quite profitably. That was why, when they used Dumbledore's vanity to remove him as Magical Britain's representative to the ICW and lock him out of any official dealings with the government of Magical Britain, it was agreed that Contessa Seren Zabini would be perfect to represent Magical Britain in the ICW.

Like most from the Druid Houses, Seren had little regard and no respect for Albus Dumbledore, but when Snape was questioned under Veritaserum and his testimony was confirmed by the memories they took from him, this became hatred. She'd been shown proof that her friends, parents, daughter and beloved Alessandro had all been murdered by Death Eaters, simply because that old bastard _disapproved_ of Veela like her and had decided that her family's blight on the magical bloodlines needed to be erased before it could contaminate them any further.

When Seren learned of this, she added destroying everything Albus Dumbledore believed in to her mission in life, to ensure that his legacy was as empty as the man himself. While she had her Veela under control again, the judicious use of allure here and there helped nudge many decisions in the direction they should have gone if Dumbledore and the other Pure-Blood bigots hadn't been blocking progress purely because they were determined to keep things the way they were with the old Pure-Blood Houses (whatever they were called in their own countries) firmly in charge and everyone else essentially working for them.

Through her influence, the ICW was rapidly becoming more open to the idea of working with other magical people and _non_-magical people to move their world forward. It was now accepting the evidence that more open and honest dealings with the ones they'd been taught to regard as being below them would actually _help_ them uphold the Statute of Secrecy, as well as providing a great deal of benefit to the magical world.

When she thought Blaise was old enough to understand, Seren sat down and explained what had happened to their family, how her Veela had made her go crazy for a while after that and the retribution she'd planned when she heard who had been behind their family being almost wiped out and why to him. Blaise had acquired a taste for revenge from both his Welsh Veela mother and his Sicilian Wizard father, so he was quite on board with what his mother was planning and once Lily was returned and the plans to come back at Dumbledore and the Death Eaters were hashed out, Blaise was in boots and all. He spent enough time in the time chambers to get his age over fourteen so that he could claim his titles and assist his mother in what she was doing. Blaise's focus was a little different from Harry and the girls' though. He was driving himself to build up his physical and magical strength and skills to well beyond most teenagers' levels, but he was concentrating more on mastering politics and business and the talents he got from his mother, as this was how he could best help her with her plans, and Harry for that matter.

* * *

While the Magical world was enjoying what was being hailed as the dawn of the golden age though, Albus was only looking at what was happening to _him_, and what this meant for him was that he would have Harry Potter, _Lily_ Potter, Neville and Augusta Longbottom _and_ that vindictive Veela's son all in Hogwarts at the same time (not to mention the fact that Patricia Runepick, that irritating Muggle-Born that he'd been forced to hire as the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor a couple of years previously, was on their list as one of their main tutors so _she_ would be in Hogwarts much of the time as well). None of this was working out the way it was supposed to, Potter was supposed to arrive at Hogwarts as a broken and malleable tool, his mother was supposed to be _dead_, and so were the Veela and her son for that matter, but they had taken over his school and at the moment he couldn't see any way of wresting control of it back from them. How had everything fallen apart like this?

In the Druids Tower, Harry and the girls had a two bed chamber suite at the top of the tower (mainly because it was expected), while the rest of the students were generally two to a bedchamber. A few had bed chambers to themselves, some had three beds, one group of four sisters shared a single chamber, but generally it was two. The fact was, over half of them didn't really need bed chambers at all because they were sleeping inside their expanded trunks but they had to keep up appearances in case others saw their bed chambers.

Breakfast the next morning in the Great Hall was tense, because most of the students were on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what happened next. Dumbledore wasn't the only one glaring at them from the High Table, either. No-one was surprised about the Squib caretaker Filch being out of sorts because he was _always_ a miserable old coot, but Professor Quirrell, this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, was also glaring at the Hufflepuff table where Harry was.

Quirrell had been Hogwarts' Muggle Studies teacher the previous year, but the Department of Magical Education had demanded that the revised Muggle Culture course be taught by someone who was at least Muggle-Raised so that they would understand what they were teaching. This meant that the Pure-Blood Quirrell lost his teaching position as at the end of the school year, but Dumbledore had offered him a deal, promising him the Defense Against the Dark Arts position on the proviso that he got some practical experience over the summer to give him a bit of credibility. The strange thing was that Pomona had heard Dumbledore specifically suggesting… almost ordering… that Quirrell go to Albania for the summer, because going up against some of the vampires they had there would be good for his reputation.

They didn't know whether Quirrell had gone to Albania to face vampires or not. The fact that he made everyone's eyes water with the overpowering reek of garlic that always surrounded him implied that he might have, but if so it hadn't done much for his confidence because he was scared of his own shadow, he was so nervous talking to students that his stuttering made him almost intelligible. There was also something _wrong_ about the man, quite aside from the reek of garlic and his horrendous fashion sense which apparently made him think that wearing a hideous purple turban was actually a good idea. Harry couldn't quite put his finger on it but even though the reek of garlic was enough to ensure he didn't get too close to him, he was feeling something rather dark from Quirrell, perhaps it was residual damage from being hit with dark curses or something... He'd have to make a note to ask Auntie Poppy to check him for dark curses, he didn't seem to be much of a wizard so he may not know how to tell that he had residual damage from an attack.

* * *

Harry was distracted by Dumbledore and Quirrell glaring at him and trying to answer questions from some of the other Hufflepuffs, so he didn't notice the student who was approaching until he spoke from right behind him.

"Potter! Because of you, my father was dismissed from his Ministry position and sent to Azkaban, now he can't get any job suitable for his position in society and I demand satisfaction!"

Harry could see Dumbledore's glee and that he had no intention of stepping in to stop this, so he calmly turned around. "And you are?"

"Lord Davies, Head of the Noble House of Davies now that you have had my father's title stripped from him!"

"How exactly am I supposedly responsible for your father presumably being caught with his fingers in the till, because that's the only reason I can see for someone to be dismissed from the Ministry and sent to Azkaban?"

"I know your family had to be behind this, this type of thing never happened before your Mudblood mother used those dark rituals to return from the dead!"

Harry shot another glance at Dumbledore, but he was lapping this up and still refusing to do anything to stop it, so he stood up.

"Davies, you have insulted my mother and accused her of using dark rituals without a shred of proof, you will apologise now or face the consequences!"

Davies barked a laugh. "Apologise for calling the Mudblood what she is and saying what everyone knows? I don't think so! Are you going to stop hiding behind Mummy's skirts and face me in an honour duel or will you submit to paying compensation of my choice?"

So that's what he was after, trying to intimidate Harry into agreeing to pay compensation rather than fight so he could take most if not all of the Potter fortune, there was no chance of that happening, but Harry accepted he had to play the game so he looked a question at Blaise, who'd just walked up.

Blaise snorted. "The House of Davies are a Junior Noble House, they became Noble during Grindelwald's war when the Heir to the Minor House of Davies got a teenaged witch who was the last member of a Junior Noble House pregnant and married her. This one is Chester Davies, he claimed the family titles and became Baron Davies a few months ago when he turned seventeen but repaying the gold his father stole and the fines that were levied against them used up most of the Davies fortune, so he's obviously trying to find some semi legitimate way of getting at the Potter fortune. He either hasn't learned the rules of Noble House society, or is hoping that _you_ haven't though, because he doesn't even have the right to challenge _me_ legitimately, and I'm too far below you in the hierarchy of Magical Britain to meet the criteria to challenge you Duke Potter.… On the other hand _you_ now have indisputable proof and hundreds of witnesses to his insults and false accusations against your good mother, the Duchess Potter, so you would have no trouble having him charged and penalised."

Harry inclined his head to Blaise. "I see, thank you Conte Zabini. I believe that the most prudent course would be to do as you advise and let the Wizengamot render judgement on him for his insults. If we're really lucky the penalties will be enough to finish removing the stain of the Davies family from Magical Britain."

* * *

With that he turned his back on Davies and pretended to go to sit down, but he knew what was about to happen. Davies just looked at him, unable to believe that Potter could ignore the insults against his mother, and he quickly became enraged at being dismissed as so unworthy of a response that Potter was just going to go back to his breakfast without a word.

On top of that, he belatedly realised that what they were saying was true, with so many witnesses to his insults to _Duchess_ Potter, his family would almost certainly be wiped out, his father's plan to make them richer than ever before had failed spectacularly. In hindsight, going along with his drunk and bitter father on this was an incredibly stupid thing to do, but he wasn't going to let his family be forgotten as just another group of idiots that had been wiped out by the Wizengamot for petty offences, if they were going to be wiped out he would make sure that they were remembered!

He quickly pulled out his wand and pointed it at Harry's back, shouting the incantation for a blasting curse. This was what Harry had been waiting for and he spun around in a flash, knocking Davies' wand out and up with his left hand so that the curse hit the wall behind him up towards the ceiling while the table knife in his right hand buried itself in Davies' right eye socket.

There was a stunned silence in the Great Hall as Davies swayed until his brain registered that he was dead, then toppled over backwards.

Dumbledore took about a minute or so to register what had happened and then lit up as he suddenly realised that this could be the very thing he needed so he called out in his most authoritative voice.

"Surrender your wand to me immediately Mister Potter! You just murdered Lord Davies in cold blood, right here in front of us! You will face the Wizengamot and be punished for your crime!"

Harry ignored him as he called out. "Professor McGonagall, can someone get the DMLE here immediately please? Might I also suggest that no one be allowed to leave the Great Hall until after the DMLE have decided who they need to question?"

She nodded quickly to Filius as she said "Of course Duke Potter!" and Filius raced out of the Great Hall, the doors closing and sealing themselves behind him.

Dumbledore wasn't about to give up. "Mister Potter, I told you to surrender your wand to me, I demand that you do so immediately!"

This time Harry did acknowledge him. "What for Mister Dumbledore? I did not draw my wand at any point in this, and if I surrender my wand to anyone it will be to the proper authorities, not _you_."

"I will not allow a murderer to keep a deadly weapon that he can use against others in his possession, surrender your wand to me now!"

"The only murderer, or at least would be murderer, is that piece of shit on the floor…. who you made no attempt at all to stop casting a blasting curse at my back at point blank range! Forgive me for finding your motives and inaction extremely questionable and waiting for the proper authorities…. who should be arriving right about..." The doors of the Great Hall crashed open and Harry finished. "Now."

Amelia stormed into the Great Hall with Sirius, Alice, Alastor Moody and a dozen other Aurors on her heels, and there were thirty or forty DMLE Patrol Officers behind them. Amelia and Sirius raced up to Harry to check that he was okay and he gave them a brief summary of what happened, including Dumbledore's repeated demand that he surrender the wand he hadn't drawn to _him_, and repeatedly calling him a murderer.

* * *

Unfortunately, while the Wizengamot confirmed that Harry killing Davies was unquestionably self defence and Dumbledore had deliberately refrained from doing anything to stop Davies at any point up to and including his trying to murder Harry by casting a blasting curse at his back at point plank range, they couldn't get enough of them to agree that Dumbledore's inaction was criminal to have him charged with anything. Half of them even swallowed the obvious lie that Dumbledore had believed that Harry deliberately killed Davies and was a danger to others as justification for trying to take Harry's wand and went along with him questioning how Harry had become so skilled at killing with a knife that he could do so in the blink of an eye. If the memories displayed hadn't shown Harry obviously grabbing the knife from the table as he started to turn back, Dumbledore probably would have gotten some of them to agree that he'd set up Davies so he could kill him.

In the end, all they got out of it was a lukewarm sanctioning of how Dumbledore handled the matter and the forfeiture of the Davies' titles and everything they owned, plus the execution of Davies' father for his part in the attempt on the life of the Head of two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses and the permanent eradication of the Davies Wizard Family in Magical Britain because of the shame the last Head of the House of Davies had brought on the Davies name by his actions.

Harry was so angry with Dumbledore being let off with nothing more than an ineffectual slap on the wrist that he made him terrified to go to sleep for a while by waiting until he dropped off before conjuring masses of snakes on his bed chamber floor and then vanishing them some time before morning on and off for the next month or so. Dumbledore wet and soiled his bed more than once because he wouldn't get out of bed to go to the toilet until the sun was up and there was enough light for him to be sure that there were no snakes on the floor. The adults in family were in on it, so they all gave Dumbledore knowing and evil smiles whenever he looked at them, trying to work out who was doing this to him, and hissed as they passed him. The fact that Dumbledore never looked at Harry or the other students because he presumed that the magic was far beyond anything a student could do just added to their amusement.

**A/N: I know this is far from the first fanfic that has Blaise Zabini and his mother as Veela, but hopefully I've given the notion enough of a different slant to make it stand up on its own merits. I previously took the position that all Veela were female (like Phoenixes) because how it was handled in the books never worked for me, but that became rather limiting if you wanted to have Veela as core characters, so in the last story I amended that to Veela very rarely having twins, and even more rarely having fraternal twins, which was the _only_ way they ever had male children. I also limited the boys' Veela abilities in that they only get a very limited subset and strength of the Veela abilities their sisters get. FWIW**


	5. Gancanagh

**A gentle reminder of my position on anonymous guest reviews people. I am in agreement with the views expressed in every other writer's comment I've seen on the subject, they are generally used by cowardly trolls who take advantage of the fact that they're anonymous to make vicious attacks on the writer that they'd never make if they could be identified so _every_ guest review, the good, the bad and the ugly, will be deleted. The one I just deleted was a polite expression of opinion on points I would have been happy to clarify or debate if it were signed, but it was deleted because it was a guest review. I'm not enough of a hypocrite to only leave the ones I don't mind.**

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to anything in JKR's stories.**

Harry shook his head ruefully as he sat down to his second breakfast at Hogwarts, because it was like that stupid movie Groundhog Day, most of the students were nervous and Dumbledore, Filch and Quirrell were glaring at him from the High Table again. The brighter students at least seemed to have gotten the message, that they'd hit back hard if anyone came after them but they'd treat to anyone who treated them like ordinary students fairly, because some of them were starting to relax and engage in normal conversation. Well some of it wasn't _normal_ conversation because people were asking about the points that had been brought up by Neville and Blaise, and Harry because Dora had mentioned what Harry had said about the ships to some of her friends and people were asking where he'd found out about that. He shook his head again as he thought about Dora, but it was in fond exasperation this time, he loved his cousin but her brain to mouth filters could be a trifle lacking at times.

He was actually looking forward to starting his regular classes today, as because of the Wizengamot session he hadn't made it to any of them yesterday. He wasn't expecting much of them but the point of coming here was to learn to interact with others of their age group…. Well that and the legislation that _someone_ forced through a few years ago which restricted participation in the government in any way, shape or form to those who had attended Hogwarts.

The only part of the thing with Davies that really bothered him was how it could effect the younger Davies son, who had just started as a First Year. He hadn't lost any sleep over killing Chester Davies in self defence or sending a message by heavily penalising the House he was Head of, or his father's death penalty which was mandatory under the old laws for that matter…. but Roger Davies, or rather Roger Smith now as he and his mother had been forced to revert to her maiden name when the Davies Family name was eradicated in Magical Britain…. hadn't been responsible for his brother or father's actions. Hermione cheered him up a little by pointing out that hopefully Roger would take this chance to start over and become his own person without being effected by the poison his father had obviously been doling out to his sons. Money would be tight, to be sure, but they could anonymously cover the costs of his education and arrange for him and his mother to have modest but adequate accommodations. That helped salve Harry's conscience about the one part of this he _did_ feel guilty about.

Even though the regular classes they were attending were for the most part being taught by members of their extended family, they were as disappointing as Harry had expected, because they were being forced to proceed at the rate of the weakest students. In the end, most of the group had gone into Second, Third and Fourth Year because it would have been too frustrating for them to sit through the basic introductions of First Year. It had been a simple matter to register them all as being home schooled and do the relevant exams at the Ministry, especially after Griselda and her Deputy, Hadrian Tofty, were put in charge of the Department of Magical Education in the restructure that made the Wizarding Examination Authority part of Magical Education.

Dumbledore hadn't been at all pleased when he went to convince his 'good friend', the Head of the Department, that the course changes he was proposing were out of the question, only to find that he'd been replaced by Marchbanks and she gave him short shift. She sent him away with the admonition that the changes _would_ happen, and woe betide him if he tried to hold them up or interfere with them in any way.

The routines quickly settled in at school, as word got around the students that trying to push around any of the Druids' Group or their friends was a stupid idea, but if people left them in peace they'd do the same. The glares from Dumbledore and Quirrell and petulant, resentful looks from Slughorn didn't change, but at least Slughorn had learnt to hold his tongue.

It _was_ surprising that none of them realised that the four senior members of the Witches' Coven were part of the Hogwarts staff now and they didn't have much hope of getting anything past them. Given the fact that three of the students were likely to become coven members and five of the Druid Group's regular tutors were also members, Hogwarts was almost the home of the Witches' Coven now.

* * *

Madam Hooch, the First Years and most of the teachers were grateful when Harry supplied enough simple but quite adequate brooms to replace all the unreliable and dangerous brooms students had had to learn on for decades, and they had a ceremonial bonfire of the old brooms on the Quidditch pitch. Just about all the students and most of the staff were there to celebrate, because most of the staff had attended Hogwarts since Dumbledore became Deputy Headmaster so they'd had to learn on those dodgy old things themselves.

The four House Masters and Mistresses and Madam Hooch then stood together to overrule Dumbledore when he tried to block the proposed creation of reserve Quidditch teams for each house and provision of an informal reserve competition so that more students could experience playing Quidditch. They did the same for his objections to the proposed caveat added to the rule about First Years not bringing their own brooms to Hogwarts. That rule still applied, but the caveat added was that First Years would be allowed to play Quidditch using the new school brooms if they made the cut.

Minerva, Pomona, Filius and Rolanda made it Horace's responsibility to make sure that his house got the message that any recurrence of the 'time honoured' practice of the Slytherin Quidditch teams using dirty tricks and violence to win would result in lifetime bans for the players involved. After losing the team captain and most of the players on their house team in the first couple of games, the Slytherins got the message that everyone else was serious, so their mostly new team (they were grateful for having a reserve team to supply the players) started playing by the same rules as everyone else. Dumbledore tried to order them to reverse this of course, but spending a week in a pokey old office and draughty teacher's quarters that hadn't been used in decades because he'd been locked out of the Headmaster's office and chambers was enough to make him back down.

The laugh was that most of the Druids' Group had no real interest in playing Quidditch, some of them got onto the reserve teams to have a bit of fun but they weren't serious about it. Their main involvement came down to Harry supplying the new school brooms and him and the girls supporting Madam Hooch and the House Masters and Mistresses' attempts to make improvements.

* * *

When Dumbledore tried to take the matter of the staff defying his authority to the Board of Governors to get them brought into line, he knew that it was a lost cause the moment he walked in and saw Griselda Marchbanks, Sirius Black, Lily Potter, Frank Longbottom, Amelia Bones and Cyrus Greengrass, because it was obvious that they made up the biggest power block on the board. They went through the motions of debating each instance he was complaining about, but even his supporters were having trouble agreeing with his position on most of the points because it tended to come down to 'I'm the Headmaster and they must do as I say' without presenting any reason to disagree with the points made.

Things continued in much the same vein up until Samhain, or rather Halloween as it was officially identified as at Hogwarts, Dumbledore would sit in his ivory tower (grumbling about all the work he had to do now because the Board had ordered that, given that he no longer had the duties of the Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump to take him away from his duties as Headmaster, he would now perform all the duties of the Headmaster's role himself, rather than delegating most of the work to the Deputy Headmistress who had quite enough of her own work to do) except for meals in the Great Hall where he'd act as if he were a monarch presiding over his court. Whenever one of the House Masters or Mistresses tried to make any improvements he'd argue and do what he could to block them until the Board of Governors or Harry and the girls made him stop.

* * *

At the Halloween Feast, Harry had a foreboding that something was going to happen but he put it down to bad memories of the night their family was betrayed until the doors of the Great Hall crashed open and Quirrell staggered in, saying "Trolls, in the Dungeon….. I thought you should know" in a suspiciously calm and stutter free voice before doing an incredibly bad acting job as he supposedly fainted.

Dumbledore was on his feet before Quirrell hit the floor and he cast a Sonorous on himself so his voice drowned out everyone else as he ordered the prefects to take the students to their common rooms.

Pomona nodded grimly as Harry caught her eye and cast her own Sonorous to shout. _**"STOP!"**_ The kindly old matron disappeared as she turned on Dumbledore without cancelling her sonorous. "Are you mad, you old fool, or are you _trying_ to get half of our students killed?"

Dumbledore puffed himself up to put her in her place but she didn't give him a chance. "My Hufflepuffs' and the Slytherins' common rooms are _both_ in the Dungeons where your poor excuse for a Defence teacher has just told us trolls are! My Hufflepuffs aren't going anywhere, and if Horace has any sense, neither are the Slytherins! For that matter, _if_ the other students are indeed being sent to their common rooms, they should be escorted by teachers who might have a chance of dealing with a troll if they encounter it, _not_ other students!"

Harry and the girls cast Confundus charms around themselves so that no-one would be sure if they were there or not at that point and used the pandemonium to pop out of the Hall without anyone noticing, then disillusioned themselves and investigated the Dungeons. They didn't find any trolls in the Dungeons, but when they checked around the castle they found three trolls in a section of the corridor leading to the Druids Tower that didn't have any portraits to note their presence.

Harry used his metamorphmagus ability to transform himself into a Mirka (slightly more civilised and less hairy but much more dangerous cousins of the Yeti, the Gringott Clan employed a few of them for situations where security trolls were far too slow and stupid for what they needed), while Hermione and Luna transformed themselves into Welsh Green dragon animagus forms because the Mirka's size was way beyond any normal human transformation capabilities. They also transfigured Harry's clothes as he transformed so that he wouldn't do a Hulk and end up all but naked when his size increase tore his clothes to shreds, he thanked them over their link for that as he called his heirloom enchanted Myddril (goblin silver, which Tolkien knew of as Mithril) battle axe to him and willed it to full size to suit his current form.

The scenario they were faced with was a problem, because one of the trolls was off to one side of the stairs they would have been expected to use, while the other two were on the other side towards the Druids Tower. This meant that if they started from the stairs as expected, whichever one they attacked first, they would have had another troll at their back unless they split up to each take one of them on, and they didn't want to do that. Hermione quickly came up with the most sensible solution. "Harry, if we get behind that one…" Indicating the one by itself. "You can take it out with your axe, and then we'll all charge the other two together."

That worked for Harry, so about twenty seconds later the disillusioned Mirka and Dragons popped into existence just behind the lone troll and the eight foot long disillusioned battle axe in Harry's hands was slicing though the air at the troll. It was rather disconcerting to see the troll's torso suddenly split in two, with its head, one arm and over half its body down to the waist falling one way while the other arm with its club and the rest of its body fell the other. They didn't wait for the troll to topple to the floor though, as they'd leapt over the corpse and were racing towards the other two trolls.

Mountain Trolls (what these were) weren't very bright, but seeing the other troll suddenly split in two for no apparent reason told them something was up and the pounding of Harry's boots and skittering of the dragons' claws on the floor were enough for them to work out that something was coming at them, something big! The fact that they were both suddenly bathed in dragon fire may have told a Gringotts troll _what _was coming at them but most trolls had never seen a dragon, so the only thing going through their heads was probably something to the nature of 'Burn! Bad!'.

They didn't suffer long though, because Harry reached them just after the dragon fire did and cut off their heads. Harry vanished the axe (it didn't matter where it went to because they could call the heirloom weapons of their primary houses from anywhere) and transformed back into his natural form, shrinking his clothes to match while the girls did the same, as far as returning to their human forms anyway. They collapsed into a group hug for a few minutes then vanished the trolls' body parts with elf magic to prevent their wizarding magical signatures or goblin magic showing up. Harry have an evil smile and shook his head when Hermione said they really should clean up the rest of the mess too.

"No, I don't know what their game is yet but it's obvious that Quirrell and Dumbledore were both involved in this somehow, and they know that the trolls were here. Given the fact that the trolls had been used to set up a trap _here_, on the way to the Druids Tower, and Dumbledore seemed so determined to send us here says to me that I was their primary target, for Dumbledore at least, but that doesn't explain what Quirrell was planning….."

He looked up, saying "Baron Selwyn, Sir Nicholas, may we speak with you please?" before he continued.

"Anyway, they both _know_ the trolls were here, so it would probably worry them more if there's enough blood and scorch marks to show that they were killed here, but there's no evidence of _who_ killed them."

The Bloody Baron and Nearly Headless Nick floated through the wall at that point and Harry bowed to them. "Greetings Baron, Sir Nicholas, we were hoping that you may be able to provide us with some information and grant us a boon?"

The ghosts took in the evidence of a battle in the corridor and bowed to them, the Baron waving to Sir Nicholas to respond as he rarely spoke. "Verily My Lord, how may we help you?"

Harry waved about the corridor. "As you can see, we have dealt with some trolls who were let into the castle here. We have vanished most of their remains but are leaving the evidence of their demise to see what the ones who let them into the castle will do when they discover their plan was foiled. The boon I wish to ask is that Hogwarts and the ghosts do not reveal to anyone, _especially_ the headmaster, anything about this. Is this a boon Hogwarts and the ghosts can grant us?"

"Certainly My Lord, as Lady Hogwarts has told you, our first allegiance is to yourself and your Ladies. However your specific reference to the Headmaster is a concern, may we ask why you have singled him out?"

Harry sighed. "Because I am convinced that the trolls' placement here was specifically planned on his part as an assassination attempt against myself and my Ladies Sir Nicholas. I am sure that Professor Quirrell was involved, but I am as yet unsure of what his motives were... Which leads us to my request for information…. Are the Headmaster and Professor Quirrell still in the Great Hall, and do you know where they are if they are not there?"

* * *

The ghosts looked off to one side and Sir Nicholas answered. "Lady Hogwarts advises that the Headmaster is still in the Great Hall, arguing with Professors Sprout and McGonagall, but Professor Quirrell is not there. She is searching the castle for him at the moment….. Ah, the portraits have located him heading upstairs, he appears to be heading for the Third Floor."

Harry looked at the girls. "What's he heading to the Third Floor for?"

Luna smiled. "The traps of course Silly!"

Harry shook his head. "Could you explain that for those of us who can only see things in _this_ realm please Luna?"

"Oh, sorry, it's the traps that Dumbledore had the Professors set to guard the Philosopher's Stone..."

Hermione swore. "The _what_? Do you mean to tell me that that old bastard has been hiding something that valuable and dangerous in a school full of children?"

Harry gave a pained look. "Will you two stop that please? What the hell is the Philosopher's Stone?"

Hermione smiled and patted him on the cheek reassuringly, but ruined the moment by saying. "If you'd paid more attention to your serious studies instead of spending so much time on fighting and politics, you'd know this Harry!"

He just looked at her, it was hard for him to stay miffed at these two but he was making a good try at the moment.

Hermione gave a long suffering sigh. "The Philosopher's Stone was created by the famed alchemist Nicolas Flamel and his wife Perenelle. It is reputed to be capable of transforming base metals to gold, but more importantly it is the only known source of a true Elixir of Life. The Flamels are both well over six hundred years old, which is accepted as the proof of the Stone's ability to create a true Elixir of Life. Many people would kill anyone they had to to get their hands on something like that, which is why it's totally irresponsible to keep it in the school…. There's no way Auntie Minnie and the others would have agreed to that, or kept it a secret that they were involved in setting up traps to guard anything dangerous in the school so Dumbledore obviously didn't tell them about the Stone, and I'll bet they've been obliviated of the fact that they created the traps… The protections Uncle Ragnok's people created to stop him getting into their heads wouldn't stop him obliviating them."

Harry swore, that sounded like Dumbledore alright. "Do we know where Quirrell is now Sir Nicholas?"

"Lady Hogwarts said that he's just gotten off the moving staircase on the Third Floor My Lord."

"Thank you Sir Nicholas." He looked at the girls. "We can't let him get something like that stone, there's something wrong about him."

The girls nodded and without another word, they held hands and popped to the Third Floor together.

It took a while to work out where Quirrell had gone, but they eventually found it by the smell coming from behind one of the doors. They were taken aback when the opened the door, because there was a bloody _Cerberus_ in there, but luckily an enchanted flute was playing, which had put it to sleep. There was an open trapdoor in the floor and all a detection spell cast down the hole revealed was plant matter, so they levitated themselves down into the hole (after sealing the door with spells that no normal student would be able to overcome, because the outcome of a Cerberus meeting normal students would be messy). The plant matter turned out to be Devil's Snare, but that wasn't hard to get past and they went on.

The next obstacle was a room full of flying keys, with a locked door that was resistant to simple unlocking spells on the other side. It took them less than a minute to find a spell which would unlock the door, so they looked at each other as they headed down the hall behind the door, these so called traps wouldn't keep out more than a Second or Third Year student. They had confirmation that this was a setup at the other end of the hall because the next so-called 'obstacle' was a giant wizards chess set with life sized pieces, but it was easily circumvented by popping to the other side of the chess board. The next obstacle was a little more serious, but still within students' capabilities, because it was another troll, but someone had already dealt with it by blasting its head off.

It was the next challenge after the troll that told them who these 'obstacles' were intended for, because it was the first one that any competent student from Fourth or Fifth Year up couldn't be expected to handle. No, this one required logic that was rarely found in the wizarding world and an above average intellect to select the potion that was needed to proceed safely. This one was meant for someone like them, more specifically, it was meant for Lily Potter's son.

It didn't take them long to determine the correct potion to get through the portal to the next challenge, but there was only a single dose in the vial. Once again whoever set this up had shot themselves in the foot by presuming that it would an inexperienced student facing the obstacle though, because they just duplicated the vial a few times. The fact that this challenge was harder than all the previous ones made them pause though, because that wasn't the sort of thing you did halfway through, it was more like what you did in the lead up to the final challenge.

If Quirrell was just on the other side of this portal, he would see anyone coming through. Harry argued that he was the one Quirrell had been fixating on since they started, so he should be the one who went through visible and tried to hold his attention so Quirrell wouldn't notice them as they followed him through, disillusioned and silenced (he knew better than to suggest that they let him go on alone). The girls didn't like that, but they couldn't fault his logic so that's what they did.

It went just as Harry had planned, Quirrell was in the chamber on the other side of the portal, standing in front of a mirror and talking to himself, but he spun around as Harry stepped through. Harry made a big show of asking what he was doing there and that focussed Quirrell's attention on him while the girls stepped away to either side, just slowly enough to avoid attracting attention to their disillusioned forms through movement.

Quirrell snapped "Come here Potter!" and Harry complied to keep his attention focussed on him, even though he could have done without being that close to that smell. Luckily Quirrell ignored Harry's expression as he launched into a traditional villain's monologue with wizarding vocabulary, but Harry was sick and tired of hearing that shite…. Why did most Pure-Bloods have to be such pretentious idiots?…. so he cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah... I know, you're very important and powerful and everyone will bow down before you when you reveal yourself…." He suddenly shook his head in disgust. "Eww! That just conjured up an image I could have of done without seeing, you jumping out in front of a group of little First Year girls and flashing them, but that's not important… Look. Why don't we just skip over all that to the point where you tell me what you're doing here, what's happened to your stutter and what's that creepy looking mirror for?"

Quirrell started to explode at the boy talking to him like that, because while he was supposedly doing very well in class and killing the Davies boy with a table knife the way he did had certainly been an eye opener, with his parents it would have been a surprise if he wasn't a competent wizard and he'd killed Davies like a common Muggle would have, so he couldn't see anything special about him. That's when things went pear shaped, because Quirrell was cut off by a sibilant voice that was apparently coming from the back of his head. "Stop you fool! There is something wrong here, he is not what he appears to be…. Let me deal with him directly."

"Master….. You can't!... it's too risky…. you're too weak..."

Quirrell staggered as if he had been hit with a spell and his face screwed up in pain. Harry grimaced at the idea of being tortured by something inside your own head, Quirrell was a git but he wouldn't wish that on anyone! The voice spoke again. "Do not question my word or my power worm! If I didn't need you yet I'd kill you right now! Now do as I say!"

Quirrell whispered "Yes Master" shakily and reached up to start pulling the turban off. Garlic cloves fell out of the turban's folds as he unravelled it and Harry and the girls realised why he reeked of garlic all the time, he'd been using the garlic to cover up the smell of putrefying flesh that was now growing in the chamber. Harry and Luna caught a glimpse of another face growing out of the back of Quirrell's head from Hermione, because Quirrell was facing away from her as he removed the turban, which explained where the voice was coming from.

When Quirrell finished, he turned around so Harry got a good look at that face, though he wished he hadn't because it was one ugly mug, looking like a mix of human and snake with red eyes. There was no question who it was though, Tom Riddle, no… Voldemort, because there was no trace of the boy Tom Riddle left in this thing.

"Harry Potter! It's been eight years since I saw you last, though you somehow appear to have aged twice that much….."

Harry didn't need to fake his anger as he spat. "You! You were the one the rat let into our cottage to kill my parents… well kill my Dad anyway!"

"Yes…. and once you've retrieved the Stone for me you will show me how you and your Mudblood mother survived!"

Harry smirked at him as he got his anger under control. "That's the pot calling the kettle black isn't it Tommy? If this git who's been carrying you around can read well enough to understand what's written the papers, you should have found out by now that everyone knows that my Mum's blood's a lot purer than _**your's**_…. The bastard son of a Common Muggle and an inbred Squib who was so pathetic that she had to use love potions to get him to bed her, oh how the so called mighty have fallen!"

"_**Silence!**_ You will pay for that you foolish boy!…. But first you will help me retrieve what I need, look into the mirror!"

Harry snorted. "Oh you _really_ need to learn how to work people Tommy boy, what incentive do I have to help you when you've already told me that I'm going to be punished as soon as I do?"

"_Quiet!_ Look in the mirror and tell me what you see!"

Harry was going to tell him to shove it up his arse when he caught sight of himself with his family, including his father and grandparents, and his image winked at him, pulling a red stone out of his pants pocket to show him and then returning it, and when he did that he could feel the stone in his own pocket. He couldn't stop his eyes widening at that and Voldemort caught his reaction, hissing.

"_Tell me what you saw!_"

"It was a group of people walking on a road made of golden bricks, there was a girl with a little dog, a golem made from clothes stuffed with straw and another one made of tin tubes, and what looked like some sort of Were Lion, but for some reason the girl seemed to look like me, the straw golem had Quirrell's face, the tin golem had Dumbledore's face and the Were Lion had your face….." He couldn't help snorting at that point because the girls were laughing over their links, but he was betting that neither Tom Riddle or Quirrell would have even heard of the Wizard of Oz, let alone read or seen it, so Voldemort wouldn't know that he'd just been called a coward, Dumbledore a heartless bastard and Quirrell an idiot.

But once again, he hadn't managed to cover up his reaction well enough and Voldemort had caught it.

"_He's lying!_ Grab him and open yourself to me! If he won't tell me the truth willingly, I will take it from him by force!"

Quirrell turned around again and grabbed Harry's head, but he started screaming and released him as soon as his hands touched Harry's skin. Harry saw this as a good thing, so he reached out and grabbed Quirrell's head too, trying to reach around far enough to touch Voldemort's face. That seemed to work, because they were _both_ screaming now, and Harry stepped back to watch what happened.

Quirrell's hands blackened and fell away as they turned to ash, and this effect continued up his arms. The same was happening to Quirrell's head where Harry had touched it, but as Voldemort's face turned to ash and fell away, a cloud of what looked like black smoke came out of Quirrell's head. Harry and the girls had seen this in the memories they were shown of the ritual where the soul anchor was removed from Harry, and when they watched other soul anchors being removed from some of the Peverell, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff heirlooms that they'd called to them, so they immediately cast the spells they'd been taught to contain and then destroy the soul fragment that had been released from Quirrell.

By the time Quirrell stopped screaming because his head had turned to ash and fallen away, the girls had removed their disillusionment and silencing charms and joined Harry, and they were comforting each other with a group hug. When they were feeling a little better, Harry pulled the Philosopher's Stone out of his pocket to show the girls. Their banter about what they could do with it was just letting off steam, because there was only one thing to be done with it, return it to the Flamels so that that they would continue to live, and convince them not to be so trusting of manipulative old bastards like Dumbledore in the future.

* * *

As the adrenalin died down, Hermione's logical mind came to the conclusion that someone like Dumbledore wouldn't bother coming through all those traps to get to this chamber, so they scanned the chamber and found a door, which opened onto a stairway that led straight up to the Headmaster's chambers. They were about to pop away from Dumbledore's chambers when Harry smirked.

"We need to bring the DMLE in to deal with Quirrell, the trolls and the Cerberus and other traps, but Dumbledore might register the notification when they come through the wards. If they came through the floo though, he wouldn't get any warning before Auntie Ami turns up, and the only floo in Hogwarts that is authorised to be used as a magical transport is the one in Dumbledore's office."

So they went through to Dumbledore's office and called Auntie Ami to bring in Aurors and DMLE Patrol Officers to deal with the mess.

While they were waiting for Auntie Ami, Harry and the girls went to talk to Fawkes, because they'd seen on the times they'd been in Dumbledore's office that she wasn't his familiar as he claimed (or male for that matter, but anyone who knew what they were talking about knew that all phoenixes were female). Harry's rage when they linked with Fawkes was shaking things off the shelves, and the girls weren't far behind because they found that Dumbledore had used blood magic to forcibly bind the phoenix to him as a servant so that he could use her to give credence to his image as the 'Leader of the Light'. Hermione used her Earth Mother ability to draw energy from the ley lines that met under Hogwarts and they used that energy to burn away all the bindings Dumbledore had put on the phoenix. Having the bindings released triggered a burning and rebirth that was so intense that it half melted the golden perch the phoenix was on and Luna picked her up out of the ashes, cradling her in her hands. She immediately formed a familiar bond with the three of them and announced that she would now be known as Ushas, and they were all cooing over her when Auntie Ami arrived with her people. Amelia had also brought Uncle Saul, along with Lily, Pandora and Jane, who were all supposedly anonymous in Unspeakable robes but their children could sense who they were.

Harry and the girls took Auntie Ami, Uncle Saul and their mums down into the chamber, and Saul was furious when he saw the Mirror of Erised (that was what the mirror was), because it was a dangerous and powerful magical artefact that was supposed to be safely locked away in the Department of Mysteries. When he found out who'd given Dumbledore access to take it out of the Department of Mysteries there'd be all kinds of hell to pay, but for the moment his only priority was to get it safely locked away again, so he portkeyed it away to a private vault that only he had access to. They also collected every trace of Quirrell/Voldemort, put them in a box and portkeyed it away to the same vault (he didn't know who in his Department he could trust other than the two witches with him at the moment), then they went back upstairs to go and deal with Dumbledore.

Hermione had filled Auntie Minnie in about what was going on via her communication watch and she'd clued up Pomona and Filius, so they three of them were still haranguing Dumbledore in the Great Hall when the doors crashed open and Amelia stormed in with her Aurors and Patrol Officers, Saul, Harry and the girls and their mums. Half of the students and a few teachers (including Slughorn) screamed when the doors crashed open, and Amelia started in on Dumbledore before he had a chance to say a word.

"What in the seven hells is going on here Dumbledore? Trolls being killed in the halls by dragons and the remains disappeared, a Cerberus on the Third Floor, disappearing teachers, is this a school or a circus of death?"

She shot a glance at the Slytherin tables. "I know that you're teaching Death Eaters' children here, but this is beyond the pale!"

Dumbledore drew himself up. "Madam Bones, I do not…."

"Have a clue? Yes, that is becoming abundantly obvious Mister Dumbledore! Come with me! We're getting those death traps on the Third Floor out of Hogwarts right now! Bring the ones who helped you set up those death traps with you, they have some explaining to do as well!"

Hagrid shuffled to his feet, looking worried, but the other teachers were looking confused.

Amelia made a show of suddenly realising what had happened and turning even angrier as she turned on Dumbledore. "You _dare__d_ to obliviate some of our best minds without their knowledge, just to cover up your dirty little secrets?"

Minerva wasn't acting as she turned on Dumbledore furiously. "Is she right? Did ye get me and the others to help ye set up something in the castle and then obliviate us so that we wouldn't know anything about it? If you did ye old bastard I'll… I'll… I'll turn ye into a flobberworm and feed ye to that Cerberus Amelia's talking about in pieces!"

She turned back to Amelia as she struggled to get control of her temper. "Do you know which of us were involved Madam Bones?"

Amelia turned to Harry and the girls with a raised eyebrow.

Harry shrugged "There were a Cerberus and a troll, plus plant, charms, transfiguration and potions based challenges, but the potions one was really more of a logic puzzle."

Hagrid piped up at that. "I don' know nothin' 'bout no troll Ma'am. Professor Dumbledore jus' asked me to let him use Fluffy for his test."

Amelia raised an eyebrow at him and he muttered. "Fluffy's th' Cerb'rus."

Dumbledore tried to get control of the situation. "I think a more important question is what these students were doing going to the forbidden corridor on the Third Floor while they were supposed to be here in the feast with the rest of the school..."

Amelia cut him off. "I'm asking the questions here Dumbledore! But if you _must_ know, Duke Potter found himself too upset to stay and watch how everyone here was _celebrating_ the fact that his father was murdered and he thought he saw his mother murdered right in front of his eyes eight years ago on this night, so his betrothed were taking him back to their chambers to give him a chance to grieve in peace, but they saw Professor Quirrell behaving suspiciously so they followed him to see what he was doing."

She glared at him for about a minute longer and then turned back to Minerva. "It would appear to be yourself, Mister Hagrid, Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Professor Kettleburn and possibly Professor Slughorn who were involved Professor McGonagall…."

Luna piped up with. "Perhaps it was Professor Quirrell instead of Professor Kettleburn Auntie Ami? After all he was the one shouting about trolls and he knew where to go?"

And Hermione added. "And that logic puzzle for the potions challenge wasn't like anything I've ever seen in the Magical World Madam Bones, it was more like the sort of tests we have in the non-magical world."

Amelia nodded musingly. "I still think we should bring Professor Slughorn and Professor Kettleburn anyway, to see if they recognise anything in the challenges that relates to them."

Dumbledore was looking nervous, and when the people started heading for the door he said. "I'll leave you to it then Amelia, I must..."

"Just where do you think you're going Dumbledore, did you not hear me instruct you to come with us? Now that it appears that you have made sure that you're the only one who knows what's in that death trap, you're not going _anywhere_ but the Third Floor with us, so the rest of us can see…. Fluffy?"

Hagrid nodded guiltily.

"And the rest of these so called challenges."

As he was flanked by two DMLE Patrol Officers with their wands drawn, Dumbledore gave into the inevitable and came along quietly.

Amelia left some of the Patrol Officers in the Great Hall to guard the students.

The Professors were surprised when they were led to a different part of the castle first, but understood when they saw the troll blood, scratches on the floor and scorch marks. While they'd been taken a different way to normal, half of them knew where they were and Pomona would have done serious damage to Dumbledore when she saw what he'd been sending their students into if the Patrol Officers hadn't stopped her. Hagrid and Professor Kettleburn confirmed that there was evidence that at least two or three trolls had been killed there, by at least two dragons by the looks of it…. small dragons, probably Welsh Greens.

Filius tested for magic used and said. "There's nothing showing here except for elf magic, one of the younger elves probably started to clean up the mess but was stopped by an older elf who knew that we'd want to investigate what happened." Everyone nodded, as that made sense, but half of them knew that the so-called 'elves' were standing right there with them.

Amelia turned on Dumbledore. "Are you trying to tell me that you missed dragons getting through your wards _too _Dumbledore?"

He was shaking his head, confused. "No, there were definitely no dragons passing through the wards in the last few days, just the trolls..."

Amelia pounced on that. "So you _admit_ to knowing that trolls entered into the castle in the last few days and hiding that fact from everyone else!"

He realised that he was in trouble. "No! Well yes, I knew that more trolls were brought into the castle but believed that Quirinus was merely adding them to his obstacle."

"Why would any obstacle in a test need more than one fully grown Mountain Troll? Did you _ask_ him what he was doing, and why? Did it _never_ occur to you that having dangerous creatures like that in the castle was putting the students at risk?"

She shook her head angrily "Never mind, if no one has anything else to offer about what they think happened here, I suggest that we proceed to the Third Floor now. From what Duke Potter and his betrothed have told us about what they found there, there is far more than _this_ that Mister Dumbledore will have to answer for."

Everyone agreed and they headed for the Third Floor. The others blocked Harry from being seen removing the spells he'd cast to seal the door so that when they reached the door, it opened at Hagrid's touch. Dumbledore tried to argue that someone must have removed the spells he'd had preventing students opening the door, but no-one was impressed when he was forced to admit that it would have taken no more than a simple 'Alohomora' to get past his 'protections'.

Amelia and the others were as angry at Hagrid as they were at Dumbledore for having _Fluffy_ inside the school where students could have run into him, but Harry suddenly realised that this was the opportunity to do something they hadn't had a chance to try before and spoke up. "Director Bones?"

She broke off berating Hagrid and Dumbledore. "Yes Duke Potter?"

"I think most of us believe that Professor Dumbledore manipulated and obliviated the other Professors to cover up what was done here, don't we?"

She shot a glare at Dumbledore. "Yes Duke Potter, that's almost guaranteed in my mind, and we will be getting that confirmed by the mind healers when we're done here!"

"Well am I the only one who wonders what may have been been done to Mister Hagrid to make him so childishly trusting of Professor Dumbledore? As far as I know, Mister Hagrid has never shown any of the aggression that giants are renowned for, he's always been gentle and kind to everyone… And Uncle Newt, I mean Master Scamander, has always admired Mister Hagrid and often praised his wealth of knowledge and insights into Magical Creatures to us when he is teaching us about them, going so far as to get Mister Hagrid to tell us about some of the ones he's raised and dealt with. None of that fits with Mister Hagrid unquestioningly doing anything Professor Dumbledore tells him to without a care for the danger it would put the students and everyone else in….."

He turned to Hagrid. "I'm sorry Mister Hagrid, I realise that sounds like I believe you to be some sort of weak willed simpleton but that's not the case at _all_. I believe that you're far more than that, but you've been interfered with, like the Professors but far more so."

Amelia and the others were staring at Harry, shocked that that question hadn't been raised before, and more than a few of them were suspicious about _why_ it hadn't been raised before. Hagrid was looking confused, and angry as the possibilities of what Harry said sunk in, and Dumbledore was looking rather worried.

It fell to Amelia to answer Harry. "I can't speak for anyone else Duke Potter, but I'm ashamed to admit that that question had _not_ occurred to me before this, but now that you've raised it I certainly agree that Mister Hagrid should be thoroughly tested for manipulations as well, and I'll be getting myself tested too to find out whether it was my own ignorant prejudice that stopped me questioning it myself, or whether it was someone else's outside influence. I must admit that I'm actually hoping to find that it was outside influence and not some hidden character flaw that stopped me."

Hagrid and some of the others nodded at that, most of them angrily, but Hagrid removed Fluffy and took him off to secure him somewhere safe outside the castle while the others proceeded into the traps. Harry and the girls smiled at each other as Dumbledore was nudged none too gently into the trapdoor hole.

Pomona confirmed that the Devils' Snare obstacle would have been set by her, just as Filius' magical signature confirmed that the flying keys were his and Minerva's confirmed that she'd created the giant wizard chess set. As Dumbledore had already inadvertently admitted though, the troll obstacle wasn't Professor Kettleburn's work, and Slughorn's magical signature didn't match what they found on the portals used in the potions/logic challenge, Amelia demanded that they be tested again for a match to Dumbledore's signature after Hermione glanced significantly at him and no-one in the chamber was surprised when they _did_ match.

Amelia made Dumbledore remove the obstacles on the entry and exit to the chamber and they proceeded into the final chamber, where Dumbledore immediately demanded to know what had happened to the Mirror of Erised. Saul took over at that point.

"Yes, I was rather wondering that myself Mister Dumbledore. You see that particular Class Seven Dark Object was supposedly safely locked away in the Department of Mysteries…. So as you can imagine I was rather surprised and perturbed to be shown what school students had found in the school where the future leaders of Magical Britain are meant to be kept safe from the dangers of our world while they are being educated."

Those who hadn't already known discovered why he was the Head Unspeakable as he suddenly demanded.

"You will tell me now who it was who gave you access to remove the Mirror of Erised from the Department of Mysteries!"

None of them were stupid enough to think that they could have resisted that command. Dumbledore certainly couldn't and he blurted out. "Reginald Macmillan!"

Saul looked at Amelia. "If there are any enquiries about Reginald Macmillan Director Bones, you can direct them to my office, but effective immediately he will be being held indefinitely for questioning about what else he has done to betray the Department of Mysteries. It is most likely that the danger of his potentially releasing further secrets which may endanger the Department of Mysteries and Magical Britain as a whole will mean that he will never be released."

Amelia just nodded, accepting that Macmillan was unlikely to survive his 'questioning', as well as the fact that she had no authority to go against the Department of Mysteries in this, even if she wanted to, which she did not.

She turned to Dumbledore. "Do we need to go back out through your obstacles Mister Dumbledore, or do you have another way out of this chamber?"

He just released the door and led the way up the stairs, his mind still reeling from the attack Saul had used to batter its defences enough to force him to answer.

Saul, Lily, Pandora and Jane left immediately to make sure they grabbed Macmillan before he had a chance to run, while Harry, Hermione and Luna went back to their chambers and the rest of them went back to the Great Hall to finish sorting out this mess.

* * *

Like his father before him, when he reached puberty, Harry had gone through the rituals to become an accepted Protector of Virtue, which was normally just known as a 'Protector' (or Sacred Gigolo by wizards who thought they were being funny like Sirius, until witches like Lily, Minerva and Pandora heard them say it, at which point they learned to treat the role with the reverence it deserved, but to be fair to Sirius, it was his Great Aunt Dorea who had to teach him to respect magic and women as that was something he couldn't learn from his psychotic cow of a mother or insipid father and that was part of the covens' duty).

The Protector role had been created by the Amazons and officially carried on in the Vestal temples, but it had been an important role in wizarding magical cultures since the Amazons. What it came down to was that it was recognised from the early days that sexual release was as important for women as it was for men, and it was necessary for some tantric rituals, but witches as they later came to be known were found to be sometimes being severely penalised for getting this release, as they lost part of their magic along with their virginity as magic recognised it. The Amazons weren't happy about this, so they came up with the rituals needed to create the protectors, who could give them this release without taking their virgin magic.

In the Ancient Greek and Roman cultures, the Protectors were castrated as part of the rituals, but the Druids managed to alter the rituals to remove that element without threatening the function of the Protectors. This came about through the Druids recognising that the loss of the Druidess' virgin magic was offset by its replacement with familial magic when they bonded with their true mate, so they added elements to their rituals which prevented the Protectors effecting the Druidess' bond with their true mate, whether they be future or existing mates, but the Druids who met the requirements to become Protectors with their altered rituals were very rare, especially as the Druid rituals had to be performed when they reached puberty and they had to already have some form of link with their own true mates.

For most of the last two thousand years, the role of the protectors had mainly existed only in the covens and the Veela enclaves because the requirements for virgin magic in some of the covens' rituals and the sanctity of the Veelas' bonds with their mates meant that they were the only places the witches' virtue was regarded as important enough to justify the limitations of the role of Protector. Most protectors tended to came from the Veelas' male children, because the residual allure and Veela ability to absorb tantric and other energy that Veela males retained made them better suited to this role.

Of course, just like other Veela and non-Veelas, there were male Veela children who only used their abilities for their own ends. This was was why Gancanaghs, as they were known in Britain, had come to have a rather risqué reputation.

Blaise had been too wedded to his mother's plans to exact revenge on everyone who had been involved in his father and twin sister's deaths in any way for him to swear what was very similar to a Hippocratic Oath to become a Protector, because that may take away a weapon he could use against them. He didn't use his abilities to prey on girls, like Harry and Neville he was betrothed to two of the girls in the group to protect them and their Houses and he genuinely cared for them, but if he had a need to use his abilities to exact revenge on those who had harmed his family he would.

Harry, on the other hand, had had several Veela among his maternal ancestors which meant that he retained enough of the Gancanagh abilities to be suited to the role and he had already bonded with his mates, so with his mother and the girls' support he had gone through the rituals when he reached puberty. The personal advantage in this for him, Hermione and Luna was that in upsetting situations, such as they were in at the moment, it allowed them to give each other more comfort than they would have otherwise….. _Without_ risking effecting the girls' status or reputation, which suddenly changing from betrothed to married due to a magically accepted bonding event like officially losing their virginity would do if they got carried away and went further than they planned. This was why Lily, Pandora and Jane had all encouraged them to go along with this. Xeno had known about it from the start because as husband and father to Veela who knew the Protectors' role and the bonds between their children he completely understood the intention behind it, but Jane took her time leading Roger to the point where she felt it was safe to explain to him that they'd done this to protect his little girl.

* * *

The morning after Halloween, Albus was in a foul mood, because on top of losing his chance to have Potter killed, he'd lost the Mirror of Erised. (Which _hopefully_ still had the Philosopher's Stone inside it, because if it didn't, Tom had managed to escape with the Stone so he would be able to to return stronger than ever….. Without the Elder Wand he doubted that he'd be able to defeat a strong Tom Riddle, and he'd need the Stone to restore his vitality soon enough.)

Not only that, he had lost his phoenix! When he recovered enough from that mental attack by Croaker to check his office, he had found that his phoenix was gone and its burning had been so extreme that it had half melted its perch. He was wondering whether that might have managed to destroy the phoenix itself, because there had been no sign of the bird in the ashes. He was trying hard to cover up his concerns over this, but with everything else going on this was a serious problem for him. As long as he had a phoenix companion that he could claim was his familiar, everyone had believed that he was the true Leader of the Light, because the stories he made sure were spread saying that a phoenix would only bond with someone who was a true warrior of the light had protected him from those questions about him turning Dark, but now it was gone... He had to find a way of getting another one, or maybe transfigure another bird to look like his phoenix, it wouldn't be able to do any of the remarkable things they can do but as long as people believed he was the companion of a phoenix they'd continue to follow him.

He would also be facing another gruelling session in front for the Wizengamot answering questions about what happened at Hogwarts, and he had to find another Defence teacher in a hurry because Quirrell/Tom had disappeared. No-one would tell him anything about what had happened in the chamber so he had no idea whether Potter had somehow defeated him again or Tom had escaped with the Stone, and there was no way Lily Potter or Black would let him get close enough to the brat to probe him to find out….

The _only_ saving grace he could think of in this debacle was the fact that he'd managed to make Flamel believe that the goblins were lying about the vault being emptied before it was broken into, so he'd stopped demanding that the Stone be returned, and without the Stone the Flamels wouldn't last out the year so he'd soon inherit everything they had. That would give his circumstances a quite dramatic and much needed turn about…. Albus Dumbledore was _not_ meant to be poor, he was meant for great things and it was time the Magical world remembered that!

Having to put up with all the parents' whining about why their brats were being sent home for a week or so while every part of Hogwarts was checked to ensure that there wasn't anything else dangerous left in the castle was just icing on the cake! Having the Board of Governors in his office last night tearing strips off him while his head was pounding from Croaker's attack and ignoring his assurances that the school didn't need to be closed was another thing he wanted to forget.

The parents' whining brought something else to mind though and he nodded to himself in satisfaction, Gilderoy had been whining at him ever since the Harry Potter books had been banned and all monies earned from them claimed by Potter's solicitors. He wasn't making much money from his own ridiculous adventure books so he was constantly whining about being broke, if he was that broke he would jump at the chance to take on the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, especially if he let him set his own books as the text books, yes, he'd send him an owl straight away and as soon as he agreed, get the Daily Prophet to print an article about the new Defence professor and text books with a nice picture of him and Gilderoy on the front page, that would show everyone what a decisive Headmaster he was, the parents could buy the new books before the students returned to Hogwarts. Any that didn't, well they could be ordered direct from publishers, with a suitable charge to cover the expense of sending them of course! He'd heard the Muggle-Born talking about delivery charges so they shouldn't complain about paying a few galleons more for that, why should Gilderoy be the only one who made money out of this?

He shook his head mournfully though. He'd had everything ready for him to lead the Magical world to its true greatness until that Potter bitch returned from the dead, everything had gone to shit since then but it had gotten even worse last night!

* * *

While most of the students were getting on the Hogwarts Express that morning, Harry, Hermione and Luna had already left. Finding a couple who had managed to successfully hide from the world for much of their six hundred plus years would normally be an impossible task, but when the Leader of the Goblin Nations lets you call him Uncle Ragnok and one of your official titles is Patron of the Goblin Nations….. the impossible only takes a little longer.

Harry was shaking his head at the strength of the wards around the little cottage he was walking up to. He knew from Uncle Ragnok that the Flamels had been using it on and off for nearly five hundred years, but that didn't explain how strong the wards were. The Flamels obviously knew that someone was entering their wards, but they were apparently taking a wait and see approach, so Harry took the Philosopher's Stone out of the box he was carrying it in and held it up so they could see it.

Five minutes later a furious Comte Flamel was storming out of the cottage, wand in hand and demanding to know whether he was the thief who stole the Stone from Gringotts. Being laughed at by a boy enraged him even more, but Perenelle's voice managed to cut through the red haze that was consuming him just in time to stop him doing something truly stupid. "Nicolas Stop! Don't be stupid! Listen to the boy!"

That made him stop and think for the first time since the boy laughed and said. "I didn't think that you'd be that easily fooled after over six hundred and fifty years Comte Flamel."

When he'd calmed down enough to listen he nodded and the boy continued. "If I _had_ managed to steal anything like that from Gringotts, which would be impossible without corrupting trusted Gringotts employees, would I be here, at an address known only to trusted members of Clan Gringotts itself who have sworn an unbreakable oath never to endanger yourself or Comtesse Flamel, and would I have been able to pass through your incredibly impressive wards if I had any ill intent towards you? For that matter, it is my understanding that you are held in high enough regard by the Goblin Nations to have personally met with Clan Over Chieftain Ragnok the Third, have you not Comte Flamel?"

Nicolas nodded, wondering where this was going.

"If you look to the goblins standing just inside the gate, you should be able to recognise the standards of the personal guard of Over Chieftain Ragnok then."

Nicolas turned and stared at the goblins and it was true, they were bearing the standards of Ragnok's personal guard. No-one would ever dare bear those standards without the right to do so because the stories of the entire families of everyone involved being very slowly and painfully executed were still going around over four hundred years after the last time someone was that stupid…. Which meant that this boy was incredibly important….. "May I beg permission to apologise for my incredibly rash behaviour and have the honour of learning your name good sir?"

Harry nodded easily. "I believe that you will find that there is an external reason for your behaviour when you have yourself examined by trusted and competent mind healers Comte Flamel, because I believe that you've been interfered with, so you do not need to apologise, though I'm afraid that if Comtesse Flamel hadn't managed to get through to you before you acted on the rage you were being induced to feel, it would have gotten rather messy…. You see Uncle Ragnok has a bit of a soft spot for his blood adopted human nephew, but I'd put money on my betrothed dealing with you before Ulfr and Uncle Ragnok's guards did…. And as for who I am…."

He bowed formally to Nicolas and Perenelle and said. "My primary title here in France is Comte Henri James Corbeau, Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Corbeau, but I am better known by my primary British titles…. Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses… and Patron of the Goblin Nations."

Harry gave them time to get their heads around that and then asked for leave to have his companions join them. Once they'd gone inside and everyone had been introduced, Harry got the Flamels' agreement to be examined by the mind healers they'd brought with them, who were personally vouched for by Ulfr, Nephew and Heir of Ragnok the Third. The Flamels were _both_ enraged to find that Harry's suspicions were correct, but they were grateful for having the compulsions, memory manipulations and other manipulations removed from them, even though seeing what steps had to be taken to remove the blood magic used on them enraged them all over again.

After Harry, Hermione, Luna and Ulfr explained to them just what their 'good friend' Albus Dumbledore had been doing, Nicolas used his Family Magic to call all the Flamel Heirlooms and other items rightfully belonging to the Flamel Families to him, getting ever angrier as more and more priceless objects that they'd forgotten about or had been convinced had disappeared over the eighty or so years since they met Albus Dumbledore came to him.

He asked Ulfr to set up a meeting for him and his solicitor with the Director of Gringotts in Paris at his earliest convenience so they could ensure that _everything_ rightfully belonging to the Flamel Families that was in Albus Dumbledore and his associates' possession was returned to them.

Hermione and Luna smiled at each other when the Flamels looked musingly at Harry as Nicolas was saying that, because it was obvious to them that Harry would now be inheriting everything Dumbledore believed was coming to him when they passed on. They knew that Harry would try to talk them out of doing that, which would only make the Flamels more convinced that he was the right one to leave everything to. That must be a problem associated with living hundreds of years longer than everyone else you know, living long enough to become disillusioned with the people you believed worthy of leaving your inheritance to…. Especially when being the Magical world's pre-eminent Alchemist for well over six centuries has resulted in you being one of the richest families in Magical Europe.


	6. History of the World, Part One

**Sorry, been doin' a lot more readin' than 'ritin' and 'rithmatic of late, I think I've churned through a couple of million words worth of other writers' stories since my last update. I particularly enjoyed ****jamcreynolds' ****Blinded by Lies (I told her I'd out her as a reason ;^), ****as well as ****T****he Sinister Man's** **Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin ****and Lady Khali's Well Groomed Mind****, ****but there have been a few others that were fun too.**

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to anything from JKR's stories.**

As Albus knew he would, Gilderoy Lockhart jumped at the chance to be able to say he was the Boy-Who-Lived's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, especially when he got to assign his own books as the text books, he didn't even bother reading the contract Albus put in front of him, he signed it before he could change his mind. Albus had to shake his head at the fact that the greedy little bugger had assigned all of his books as the required texts, but he shrugged it off, as it was no skin off his nose if the brats' parents had to pay more, and in fact it made him money because his company published Gilderoy's books, just as it had the Harry Potter books that were now banned. Of course they didn't include that little detail in the Daily Prophet article, just the fact that the Text books had changed because Gilderoy's course was radically different from the tired old course the year started with and the text books were available from Flourish and Blotts.

Gilderoy was on Cloud Nine, being announced as the Boy-Who-Lived's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher had garnered him more attention than he'd ever gotten him before this and he was raking the galleons in as a result of his brilliant idea to assign his entire collection of written works as the text books for all Hogwarts students. He was willing to bet that that wasn't really what Albus had been thinking of when he agreed to let him assign his books as the text books, but it fitted into the written agreement so he couldn't do anything about it now. The wizards who came shopping with their wives and children usually objected to how much the full set of his books cost, but luckily most of them were tied up at work and what he'd picked up from Albus and Severus at Hogwarts made it easy to control the witches….. well some of what he'd picked up from them anyway.

The business proposition that was made to him a couple of days after the Prophet Article came out was an even more exciting proposition though, as he was given Five Thousand Galleons to take an enchanted diary with him to Hogwarts, with the promise of another _Fifty_ Thousand if he managed to get it to Amelia Bones' niece and got her to activate it by writing in it…. Possibly even more if he managed to do so quickly (the intermediary who contacted him had implied that the ones commissioning this may be prepared to go as high as _twice_ that to see their son quickly freed of the broken heart he was currently burdened with). Apparently there was a love-lorn young wizard (who must remain nameless for now, of course) who was quite smitten with Miss Bones and desperately wanted to court her, but he was being prevented from even speaking with her.

The young wizard's parents had apparently come up with the brilliant idea of purchasing a pair of enchanted diaries and getting one of them to Miss Bones so that the young lovers could use them to communicate, and when they saw the article about him becoming Hogwarts' new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher they realised that this would be their best opportunity to get one of the diaries to Miss Bones. Never let it be said that Gilderoy Lockhart didn't do his all to support true love!

(And all that lovely gold, but pulling this off would give him the basis for a new book that had the potential to outsell all of his adventure books, and it would actually be based on something _he_ had done for once! Of course there would be no mention of the more concentrated form of Severus' oestrogen optimised variant of Horace's Contact potion that the diary's covers would be coated with to ensure that the Bones witch would would succumb to the compulsions cast on the diary to make her write and be more susceptible to what she read in the diary once she handled the diary so that the young wizard got his wishes granted quickly, as that would take away from the romance of the story…. But Gilderoy helping two young lovers overcome the forces trying to keep them apart? _That_ would be a winner.)

Albus fobbed off all the complaints about Gilderoy assigning all of his written works as every student's required text books with…. "Alas, while it might appear a tad excessive, there is nothing I can do other than request that he reduce the list, as it is the Professor's right and responsibility to assign the text books for the course they teach, and Gilderoy insists that all the books listed are required for his course." He was pissed off that he was being bothered with all those idiotic complaints when he had more important things to deal with…..

* * *

The day after Halloween, all of the Flamel heirlooms, tomes and the like that he'd… _acquired_ from the Flamels over the last eighty odd years had suddenly disappeared. At the time, he took that to mean that the Flamels had suddenly died and everything was automatically recalled in preparation for the reading if Nicolas' will. He didn't know what had killed them, the only thing he could think of was that Tom _had_ managed to get away with the Philosopher's stone and used it to create an Elixir of Life… and when he did so the Philosopher's stone had somehow turned the Elixir of Life it had created under its previous master to poison. This was a flimsy theory, granted, but he had been rather more tied up in planning what he was going to do with the vast fortune he had just inherited from the Flamels at the time than working out what had killed them.

The problem was that that had been over a week ago and he was bemused and more than a little miffed, because he had not seen hide nor hair of whoever the Flamels' solicitors (or whatever they were called over there) were, or any word from the goblins about receiving the inheritance he was due, in fact the goblins in Gringotts London had told him that they had nothing at all to do with clients outside of Magical Britain. Owls to Gringotts Paris went unanswered and when he went to the trouble and expense of purchasing an international portkey to go and see them in person he was told in perfunctory broken English that he'd have to make an appointment to see the Flamel Account Manager, but he was very busy at the moment so it would be a while before he'd be able to make the time to see him. This was all very suspicious and he was beginning to wonder whether those thrice damned goblins had found some way to claim the deceased estates of their clients if the named beneficiaries didn't reside in the same country that their clients had, because that was the sort of thing those filthy little creatures would do if they had half a chance.

While he was anxious to get his hands on the Flamel fortune though, the part of his inheritance he was _most_ desperate to get his hands on in a hurry was the title of Baron Flamel, Head of the Junior Noble and Ancient House of Flamel (there was a Flamel among the scores of wizards who William the Conqueror had used promises of English Baronies to bribe into supporting him in the Normal Conquest of 1066 and the title ended up with Nicolas as the last of the Flamel bloodline), because he was starting to see where the real power in their world was and that Noble and Ancient title was the only thing he could think of that might have any chance of saving him when Bones dragged him in front of the Wizengamot for his part of what happened on Halloween. What Dumbledore didn't realise was that the family had agreed that he would have difficulty keeping up the fiction of being a warrior of the light without a phoenix companion and it would be much easier to destroy him without the sheeple of Magical Britain standing by him because of that image, so they had decided to wait a while before dragging him in front of the Wizengamot.

* * *

Lockhart was quite put out when he arrived at Hogwarts to find that neither Harry Potter or Susan Bones would be attending his Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. Dumbledore had used Harry Potter as the main bait to get him to agree, but now he was being told that that Potter had _never_ attended the regular Defence classes. He hadn't told him that Horace had returned to replace Severus either, but at least _he_ only liked young boys so he'd only need to worry about keeping Albus happy. The Bones witch not attending his classes would be a problem, as what he'd thought would be simple, have a word with her after class and pass her the present that her secret admirer had been prevented giving her, was obviously going to be much more work, but the 50-100,000 Galleon prize was enough to make it worth his while.

He lucked onto a way to get to the Bones girl about a week later while he was watching her (surreptitiously in his mind, but Pomona had caught him at it and she was keeping a close eye on him because the attention he was paying her smacked of inappropriate interest in young girls in her mind) in the Great Hall, because she was apparently good friends with a pretty little Third Year Ravenclaw who _was_ in his classes. It only took a slight modification of his previous plan to get the diary to Bones, he had a word with Penelope Clearwater after class and explained that Miss Bones had a secret admirer in the school who was rather smitten with her, but the group she was always with wouldn't even let the poor boy talk to her. He told her that he'd come across the boy in a distraught state up on the Astronomy Tower one night and had had to promise to find a way to get his present to Miss Bones to stop him throwing himself off the tower in despair….. He hoped the boy would be bright enough to play along if the Bones girl asked him about this story, or that she'd think he was too embarrassed to admit it.

It was all Penny could do to not cringe, her Dad was Muggle-Born so she'd been raised in the Muggle world and _**Stranger Danger**_ was flashing in her head from what she'd been taught at school as she listened to this creep waffling on. It might be important to know just who was trying to get to Sue though so she pretended to go along with him.

"Oh that's so sad Professor. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"It's very good of you to offer Penny…... Actually….. now that you mention it, there _may_ be something you can do. You're a friend of Susan's aren't you? Perhaps you could give her his present for me? I'm sure that Susan's young wizard would be ever so grateful, just as I am!"

He gave her what was no doubt meant to be an enticing smile and wink, but it just came off as lascivious and dirty.

It was hard for to keep an innocent and helpful smile on her face because that look made her stomach turn. _Ewww!_ You filthy old pervert! I'll do this for Sue, just to make sure that _you_ never go anywhere near her.

"Of course Professor, I'll give it to her straight away!"

"Perhaps it would be better to wait until you're alone with her Penny, after all, we wouldn't want the ones who are stopping him talking to her to take the present from you before you can give it to her, would we?"

"Oh no! I hadn't thought of that! That would be terrible! Don't worry Professor, you can rely on me. I'll make sure to give it to her in private."

She knew she was laying it on pretty thick, but she was confident he'd fall for the dumb blonde act, after all, the term could have been created to describe him!

He held her hand in both of his and gave her another one of those smiles and winks after he handed her the wrapped diary. "You're such a sweet girl Penny. I _know_ I can rely on you, and I'll be sure to show you just _how_ grateful I am when I have a chance..."

At that moment, what Penny was grateful of was the bell for the next class, because it gave her the excuse to jerk her hand out of his and blurt out "Oh no! I'll be late for my next class! I have to run Professor!" as she ran out of the room. That pervert was so disgusting! She was only thirteen for god's sake! And while she was well aware that some girls were slags at thirteen, _she_ most definitely wasn't one of them!

That night, she sat on her bed with the curtains drawn and silencing charms on them. She cast the spell for detecting compulsion charms and the like she'd found in a book over the parcel but the spell didn't show anything (the Contact potion amplified amplified the effect of the compulsion, but it also sealed it in so that it only worked by contact and couldn't be detected by the usual spells) so she unwrapped it and found a diary, with a note to Sue explaining that this was an enchanted diary that would allow them to talk to one another without anyone else finding out.

She grabbed a quill and ink well and asked the obvious question. 'Who are you?'

There was a short delay before the response came back. 'I'm Tom.'

* * *

The staff and family at Hogwarts were waiting for the punch line, because Dumbledore managing to replace an incompetent possessed by Voldemort with someone even more incompetent, and the assigned text books which cost a few times more than any other texts were actually a series of far fetched adventure stories without any form of instructions in them to boot _had_ to be a joke. The problem was that no-one could work out what the joke was, and Dumbledore wasn't saying anything because he'd locked himself away in his chambers.

Minerva didn't bother saying anything when Lockhart decided to take Dumbledore's fancy chair at the centre of the High Table (it was the most imposing chair he could find in the castle to replace his throne after all the misappropriated heirlooms and Family treasures were reclaimed) because it wasn't being used, she just hit him with an overpowered stinging hex, which apparently hurt like a Cruciatus curse if his scream was to be believed, and quietly asked with a carrying voice.

"Just what do you think you are doing Mister Lockhart?"

"I was just going to take a seat for dinner!"

"And what makes you think that you have the right to usurp the Headmaster's chair?"

"He hasn't been here for the last five meals! It's just a chair for Merlin's sake woman!"

"It is _not_ just a chair, _that_ chair is a symbol of the Headmaster's authority and no one _but_ the Headmaster will sit in it! And if you _ever_ refer to me as _woman_ in that tone of voice again I will have you in front of the Hogwarts' Board of Governors! I am the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts and you will refer to me as that or Professor McGonagall, do you understand?"

He went to mouth off at her so she hit him with another stinging hex. "I asked whether you understood what you were told Mister Lockhart!"

"Yes! Yes, I understand!"

She raised an eyebrow at him, which made him feel like he was back in her Transfiguration class, being dressed down for messing up, mind you being called 'Mister Lockhart' in that tone of voice had already taken him most of the way there.

"Yes, I understand _Professor McGonagall_!"

She nodded. "Very good, now as you've already been told, the Junior Teachers and non teaching staff sit at the _end_ of the table, please take your proper seat now."

Minerva turned to look at where Harry, Hermione and Luna were sitting at the other end of the Hufflepuff table and it wasn't hard to interpret her thin lipped expression so Harry called for one of the elves to bring Dumbledore to his seat at the High Table. When he appeared moments later, half of the Great Hall burst out laughing, because he was wearing a night shirt, but another whispered command had this swapped for more normal robes (nothing in Dumbledore's wardrobe really qualified as 'normal'). Minerva gave him a thin lipped smile.

"Ah, Headmaster, I glad that you have decided to join us at last, your presence has been missed."

It was obvious that Dumbledore wanted to say something to that but her expression told him that it wouldn't be worth the pain it would cause.

* * *

A couple of weeks after Dumbledore was… induced to stop hiding in his chambers, Harry had a strange visitor, because the Bloody Baron came to the Druids Tower to tell him that there was something in the Upper Dungeons that he needed to see urgently. Harry asked where, specifically, and when the Baron said "The ever flooding toilets". Harry, Hermione and Luna popped to Uncle Filius, Auntie Minnie and Auntie Mona's chambers respectively, grabbed them and popped to the Dungeon outside Moaning Myrtle's toilets.

'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED AGAIN

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE'

Had been written in what appeared to be blood on the wall opposite the toilet door and the floor was covered in water, but that wasn't what the Baron had collected them for. No, that was the two Hufflepuff First or Second Years and five Slytherin Sixth or Seventh Year students who were all laying on the floor, in a state much like rigor mortis. It looked as if the Hufflepuffs had been on the floor, trying to crawl away from the Slytherins and they were all facing the same way, but that was about the limit that could be determined from their positions. The only good news was the fact that scans indicated that aside from one of the Slytherins they were were all alive, but pretty much in stasis. (Well, according to Dumbledore the fact that the Hufflepuffs were both Muggle-Born and the Slytherins were all from disgraced families without much power or money was good because no-one would be worried about them, but Slughorn and Lockhart were the only ones to openly agree with him.)

Dumbledore was miffed to find that Amelia was there with Alastor, Sirius and Alice and Saul was there with Lily and Pandora (hidden in their Unspeakable robes of course) by the time he arrived, but when he started to bluster about no-one having the right to call the Ministry without his permission Harry snapped at him. "Oh shut up you old fool! How many times do you need to be reminded that Lady Hogwarts follows the orders of the Founders' Heirs, which are Hermione, Luna and myself in case you've forgotten, first and I _asked_ her to get Directors Bones and Croaker here as a matter of priority. The fact that they chose to bring trusted members of their staff with them is only sensible so, as I said…. _shut up_!"

* * *

They were organising to move the petrified students and the body to the infirmary and collecting the evidence when Lockhart hustled up. Unfortunately some Hufflepuffs had seen the group assembled here and he'd heard students gossiping about something going on in the Dungeons so he came down to see whether he could leach any benefit to himself out of whatever was going on.

They were all worried about what this might mean, and whether the living students would recover without any adverse effects, so when Dumbledore's blonde himbo started rabbiting on about what a pity it was he hadn't been there earlier because he knew just the spell to stop them becoming petrified if it was cast quickly enough, Amelia turned on him.

"Really? What spell is that?"

"Um… Ah… Well you see I'm oath bound not to teach it to anyone who may use it unethically…."

Lily waved her wand and cast nigh on unbreakable privacy wards around them. "I'm not sure how a spell to prevent someone fully succumbing to petrification could be used unethically, but no one else can see or hear us now so what's this spell?"

Lockhart made another desperate attempt to avoid answering, but it backfired on him. "You cannot understand the age old traditions of honour that the Noble Pure Blood Houses are bound to uphold or you would know better than to ask me to break an oath like that..."

It was Saul who cut him off this time, and the only time any of them had seen him this furious was when he found the Mirror of Esired. "Do not talk of things you know nothing about boy! How _dare_ you talk about tradition or Noble Houses when your mother's family had only managed to be accepted as a Common Wizard Family fifty years ago and on top of that she was cast out for getting pregnant to a common Muggle so _you_, worm, are nothing but a common Muggle Raised Half Blood! Even _Dumbledore_ can claim to be above you because he at least has received _some_ Family Magic as the Head of a common Wizard Family that is a few centuries old and his mother was a Muggle Born _Witch…_.." He looked at Lockhart for a few minutes, obviously fighting the urge to hex him into next week, but in the end all he did was use the same magic he'd used to force Dumbledore to talk, barking.

"Tell me the details of this spell you claim to know to prevent petrification!"

Lockhart folded immediately. "There is no spell, I just said that to make myself sound important like I always do!"

That gave rise to further questions. "Tell me how many of the spells referred to in your books are real, and which ones they are!"

"None except the common spells that everyone knows!"

Minerva, Pomona and Filius all looked at each other, furious to hear confirmation of what they had been arguing with Dumbledore about ever since Lockhart arrived.

Minerva growled at Lockhart. "You will buy back every single copy of your useless books for what the students paid for them and you will begin teaching from the texts that Quirrell was using immediately! We will loan the texts to any students who left them at home until their parents can owl the proper books to them. Do you understand Mister Lockhart?"

"Minerva, you can't..."

The stinging hex she cast at his sensitive bits was overpowered by her anger, if the way he was curled up on the floor screaming was any indication. "I asked you if you understood what I just told you!"

"Yes! Yes I understand! I'll buy back all my books and teach from Quirrell's books!"

Dumbledore was either brave or stupid, because he decided to step in at that point. "Professor McGonagall! I will not allow you to attack poor Gilderoy or exceed your authority like this. There will be no changes to Gilderoy's text books or classes and you will have to pay Gilderoy a penalty for your unprovoked attack on him!"

It was apparently stupidity, because he kept the same stern authoritative expression on his face as she turned to face him, ready to hex his bits off, but Amelia interceded to avoid bloodshed.

"It is _you_ who are exceeding your authority Mister Dumbledore. Saul and I can attest that Professor McGonagall has the backing of Hogwarts' Board of Governors in doing what is necessary to provide the students of Hogwarts with an adequate eduction. In case you missed what everyone else here just heard, this so called teacher has admitted that the information in the new text books that the students of Hogwarts were forced to pay quite a bit of money for is _false._ This means that the new books are not suitable to be used as text books for Defence Against the Dark Arts and therefore Mister Lockhart _will_ be buying back every single copy the students purchased for whatever they paid for them, or he will be facing charges for several hundred instances of theft by fraud. The fact that the students already own the previous text books assigned makes Professor McGonagall's suggestion most practical and useful, if not inspired…. So unless you wish to be facing charges alongside the teacher you hired without consulting the Board or even providing us with copies of his qualifications to teach so that we may satisfy ourselves that he is a suitable hire, I suggest that you start organising to find out which students don't have their copies of their previous text books here at Hogwarts so that they can contact their parents to send them. There is no need for you to remain here anyway, as the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Department of Mysteries have been authorised by the Founders' Heirs to take over the investigation of what happened."

Minerva gave Lockhart and Dumbledore an evil smile. "We actually have copies of what Mister Lockhart achieved in his OWLs and NEWTs here at Hogwarts Madame Bones, the only things we don't have are his Masteries….. Mister Lockhart, what Masteries have you earned since you left Hogwarts?"

They all heard him gasp "None!" from the floor and Amelia mirrored Minerva's smile as she said.

"While I must say that his not having earned _any_ Masteries is rather a worry, at least this means that we will be able to determine whether to sign off on Mister Lockhart's employment here at Hogwarts when the rest of the Board arrives to discuss what to do about these developments tonight…." She waved at the writing on the wall.

It was obvious that Dumbledore wanted to argue about all of that, but he held his tongue and scurried out before he could get himself into any more trouble.

* * *

Harry read what was on the wall again. "What's the chamber of secrets, and who's heir are they talking about?"

They all looked at Bathilda, as the resident history expert, for an explanation, and she sighed.

"Legend has it that Salazar Slytherin had a secret chamber constructed somewhere near, but not part of Hogwarts, because he wanted to keep it separate from Hogwarts. Even before Slytherin reportedly had a falling out with the other three founders, he was a secretive and stubborn man, and he was determined that some things had to be done that the others didn't agree with. One of them was the need for witches and wizards, as they were coming to be called, to be protected from the Muggle fanatics and foreign wizards who were the reason they created Hogwarts as a safe haven for witches and wizards, and a safe place for ther young to be taught to use their magic…. Of course the story goes far beyond that, but we need to cover the history of the magical world to tell it…."

Harry, Hermione and Luna looked intrigued at that and Harry voiced their thoughts. "We'd love to hear the full story, I don't know about the girls but so far I've only heard about what applied to what I was learning."

Bathilda nodded with a smile. "Never let it be said that I turned away seekers of knowledge, remembering and passing on the knowledge is my primary duty as the High Priestess, but not here in the corridor though, we can cover that back in the Tower. Anyway, Slytherin's chamber was, as you can guess, called the Chamber of Secrets and the stories were changed to talk about a monster that was meant to cleanse Hogwarts of all who were unworthy instead of being its protector. I can't say which version is true, but if the stories about Slytherin going mad and dying from his grief soon after his wife died were correct, it's possible that both are, in that he originally created a protector, but after he went mad with grief it became a monster that was tasked with destroying the unworthy. He supposedly didn't believe that Muggle Born witches and wizards deserved to have magic at the end, if true the changed role of the 'Monster' would fit in with those beliefs."

"No one really knows what Slytherin's supposed monster was, there's been a lot of speculation over the years but given the fact that he was famous for being a Parselmouth and his heraldic animal was a snake, it would most likely be a serpent of some kind in my opinion…. If it was indeed responsible for what happened tonight, it's either lived for a thousand years or has been awakened from stasis…. Again. That message on the wall could be confirmation of the rumours of the chamber being opened back in Nineteen Forty Three, when a Muggle Born student was killed in the castle but no one knew how. I don't know who started the stories but word going around was that someone had opened the Chamber of Secrets and it was Slytherin's Monster that killed the girl….. And as far as the reference to the heir goes, if we're talking about the Chamber of Secrets, the only one that makes any sense at all is the Heir of Slytherin, and the enemies of the Heir would I expect be Muggle Borns like the girl who was killed in Forty Three if that was the case."

They all nodded solemnly at that, as it made a depressing kind of sense.

* * *

With that, they left the investigation to the Auror Investigators and Unspeakables who had arrived and retired to the Druids Tower for the history lesson Bathilda had referred to. Once they'd all gotten themselves settled and Bathilda had a glass of elvan wine in her hand, she started.

"I probably should start with what set Saul off when that idiot started spouting off about _age old_ Pure Blood traditions because that's the easy part…. The fact is that the vast majority of the so called _Traditional_ Pure Blood Families can't trace their heritages back past the creation of the Wizengamot around Fifteen Hundred, actually most of them have been established since the Ministry of Magic was created around Seventeen Hundred so their _age old_ traditions don't mean shite! William the Bastard bribed scores of wizards with promises of English Baronies to get them to support him in the Norman Invasion in Ten Sixty Six. Only a few dozen of them managed to last out the hundred plus years they needed to become Noble and Ancient Houses because many of them had lost their titles and magic by then to the Heads of Druid Houses and Families they challenged in their attempts to claim their Family Magic by right of conquest, and of those only a handful remain today. Other British Kings have used Noble titles to bribe wizards into serving them since then, but the number hasn't really increased that much…."

"So most of the ones who are making such a big thing of _tradition_ can't trace their history back more than a few hundred years, and when the magical world as we know it goes back over three _thousand_ years, that's nothing. Our magical world was basically started by the early Druids around Eleven or Twelve Hundred BC. There were other magical cultures which pre dated that but most of them have died out, and the Druids were generally more powerful because their bloodlines were seeded by the Fae..."

She nodded to Harry. "From what Harry's Grandmother Dorea told us, his Family Magic can be traced back to the original Druids, while the family may only go back about Twenty Five Hundred years here in Magical Britain, some older ancestral bloodlines came from Europe…. Anyway, in the early days of the magical world, women provided nearly all the magical education and direction because it was accepted that the greater bond between a mother and her child made it easier for them to teach the children to control the magic inside them and how to use it. It was traditionally accepted that the first seven years of a child's life was for growing and learning to control their bodies, then around seven they generally began to display their magic so they learned to control and use it for the next seven years until they got a magical boost when they hit puberty around fourteen and tried to gain mastery of their adult magic for the next seven years or so, after which they were supposed to be able to use their magic as masters. This was why many of the Druidic tantric rituals were created. Many of them were for the purpose of improving young witches' and wizards' awareness and control of their magic when they reached puberty and channelling their bursts of magic through puberty into expanding their magic and strengthening their bonds with their true mates, though the rituals for expanding magic and strengthening bonds were continued past puberty. Of course there were never more than a handful of Protectors in any generation, most generations only had one and many had none at all here in Britain, our witches' growth was hampered by that. The men usually handled the children's education in fighting and the non magical parts of their world from when they began learning how to control their magic until they reached puberty and they were expected to know that side of things after that. The women taught their daughters female specific tasks but back in those days the girls learned to fight as well."

"Having the Druidesses providing the magical education and direction worked well enough until about two thousand years ago when the Roman Empire began expanding and forcing the countries within its borders to follow its cultural mores and rules. The councils had been leading and directing the Druidic magical communities for several hundred years by then, but they had previously been comprised of a mix of Druids and Druidesses, and the Druidesses' importance and role was recognised. After the Romans took over the non magical world across Europe and the near east though, cultural pressure was making the councils become predominantly, if not all male, which meant that while the Druids were getting leadership from them, they were getting less education and direction. This caused problems for the Druidic magical communities, which led to covens being expanded to provide magical knowledge repositories and magical education facilities. The covens were predominantly female, while the councils were predominantly male."

"I'll concentrate more on what happened in Britain from here on in, because that's predominantly what I've studied. Back then, there were councils and covens spread around Britain to lead the communities and retain and teach magical knowledge, but there was a Druids Council and Druidesses Coven made up of the preeminent members of the other councils and covens which were leading and directing Magical Britain. The Druids Council and Druidesses Coven members tended to come from the oldest and most powerful families like Harry's."

"Witches and magical children especially were vulnerable living out among the non magical people and our magical communities were losing too many of them to the purges that the Christian priests were instigating against us by the end of the Tenth Century, so Hogwarts was built here on the intersection of a number of ley lines to become a safe haven for the witches and wizards of Magical Britain, and especially a place for our children to learn to use their magic in safety. The Druids Council and Druidesses Coven, along with many of the other covens, moved here once it was established."

"As you know, around this time they began enacting the formal Druid Laws, the structure of the Most Ancient Druid Houses and Families and Wizard Families was formalised and the Druids Council and Druidesses Coven became the Wizards Council and the Witches Coven. Some of the Druid Families were over Fifteen Hundred Years old at this point and the Family Magic associated with them was formidable. They'd found that the magic of heirs especially of these families was growing stronger and maturing faster, so their children were coming into their magic and needed to be trained to control it earlier, coming into puberty and their adult magic earlier too, so they had to throw out some of the rules they were trying to make around magical education. They also had to revise their thinking about rules of succession for the Druid Families, eventually settling on a general rule of eleven being the age of maturity where they could assume control of the Most Ancient families, fourteen for the Ancient families, but if they were the last magical member of their family's bloodline they could assume control as soon as the Family Magic judged them ready to do so."

"About seventy years after that, William the Bastard assembled scores of mercenary wizards to support his invasion of England by promising them Baronies in England, and after they settled here, many of them tried to claim the Family Magic of the Most Ancient and Ancient Houses and Families by right of conquest to gain the power they needed to take over others' lands and fortunes, but they were generally defeated and lost their own titles and family magic, which actually strengthened the druids' magical and political power. Rules had already been established which said that unless they were accepted to have done something significantly notable to advance Magical Britain, a magical family had to have been active in Magical Britain for at least a hundred years before they would be recognised as a British Wizard Family. Over half of those would be Magical Lords had lost their titles and magic to Druid Houses and Families by the end of the Twelfth Century when they could meet this requirement but the ones who survived became the core of the group that plotted to take control of Magical Britain off the Druids so that they could rule over everyone else like the non magical nobles did. Towards the end of the Fifteenth Century, these ones had managed to exert enough pressure on the non magical Kings of the Three Kingdoms through their noble relatives to force the Wizards Council to be replaced with the larger Wizengamot, but the Kings did what they could to increase the Druids' political power enough to prevent them taking over at that point."

"And that's where these so called _Traditional_ Pure Bloods come in, over the next couple of hundred years they wormed their way far enough into Hogwarts to remove many of the Druidic teachings from the curriculum or corrupt them, came up with ways to get rid of many of the old families, though not permanently thank the gods, and gained control of the Wizengamot and the new Ministry of Magic…. And as a result of purposely stamping out the Druid teachings, they've convinced most of the idiots in Magical Britain to go along with their shite about the superiority of families that don't _contaminate_ their bloodlines with anything but the Norman wizards' bloodlines. There are only a handful of covens left in Magical Britain to remember and pass on the Druidic teachings and most of Magical Britain is ignorant of its true heritage…. Which is why we're in the mess we are now."

Most of them were shaking their head by the end of Bathilda's lesson, because it wasn't just the kids who hadn't heard most of this before. (Lily and Pandora were smiling at each other because they'd caught the blushes that Harry, Hermione and Luna shared when Bathilda was talking about the tantric rituals, but Luna especially hadn't been shy about telling her mother what they were doing.)

* * *

But as interesting as that was, the issue at hand was working out how to deal with the Chamber of Secrets and Slytherin's Monster if that was what had caused four students to be petrified and one to be killed. By the time Bathilda had finished her story, Poppy had finished her examinations of the students and the body, so she was able to report that there was no sign of any fang, sting or bite marks on any of them, which ruled out the majority of creatures, especially serpent related ones.

The lack of marks seemed to reduce the options to poisoned breath, like a Nundu, or a deadly gaze like a Gorgon, but neither of them really fit with serpents anyway…. Potions were also considered but that was quickly thrown out because Poppy confirmed that there was nothing in the dead boy's blood. The fact that most of the students weren't dead also seemed to rule out the Nundu, because there were no references to them petrifying but not killing the victims… Well the same could be said for the Gorgons as the victims had appeared to be dead until they were scanned and found to be alive.

They were poring through everything they could find on Magical Creatures for over a week before anyone thought to ask the goblins what type of creature might match the clues they had for Slytherin's Monster, so they felt incredibly stupid when the immediate answer was. "A basilisk!"

Gringotts London's Head Beast Master was remarkably diplomatic when he conceded that the Wizarding world knew little about basilisks because breeding them had been banned there in the Fifteenth Century and they hadn't been sighted there since the Sixteenth Century. The Goblin Nations, however, weren't bound by the laws of the Wizarding world and the fact that there was quite a bit of money to be made from them in potion ingredients and skins (which had more magic resistance than dragonhide) meant that the people had never stopped breeding them.

He did have a laugh about how the references to basilisks in Wizarding books were a mixture of fact and fantasy, with fantasy predominating. For example the stories referred to the average basilisk being several hundred years old and over fifty feet long when there hadn't been any recorded instances of basilisks that size or age in over a thousand years. The Wizarding books also included such quaint ideas as the crowing of a rooster or the smell of a weasel being fatal to basilisks (While these being fatal to hatchlings may be conceivable, fifty odd foot long beasts that were several hundred years old? Ridiculous!) and the gaze of _all_ basilisks being fatal, when the basilisks' gaze didn't generally become lethal until they were around a hundred and fifty years old and had grown to over twenty five feet long. Basilisk breeders were quite happy about that actually, and they tried to make sure that the ones they bred were killed and harvested when they were around twenty odd feet long and a hundred years old so they were big enough to be valuable but still relatively safe to handle. He also couldn't understand how it had never occurred to the Wizarding world to ask why the Goblin Nations had developed a potion _specifically _to cure petrifications (even if its preparation was sometimes delayed while they waited for some of the ingredients to become ready) or where they'd gotten all the basilisk potion ingredients and skins they sold from when there supposedly hadn't been any basilisks for nearly five hundred years, and he regarded the inability to think of such pertinent questions as a mark of the stupidity of the Wizarding world.

* * *

Aside from being laughed at by a wizened old goblin who had almost as many parts missing as Alastor Moody, it had been quite a fruitful visit as it was almost certain they knew what they were up against now, and the goblin people had proven ways to deal with them. Amelia was shocked to hear what the Monster was, but Dumbledore was suspiciously nonchalant when they told him. They challenged him about it but he denied knowing what they were talking about until Harry looked him in the eye as he calmly said. "Auntie Ami, can you get Uncle Saul here as soon as possible please? We can't afford to waste any time looking for this basilisk and this old bastard is still playing games that could get more people killed. If he won't tell us willingly, we need to get Uncle Saul to pull the answers we need out of his head."

Dumbledore was outraged about being called an old bastard to his face by Potter but he remembered the headache he hadn't been able to get rid of for days after the last time Croaker smashed down his barriers to force him to give an answer. He didn't want to have to live through that again, _or_ be forced to give up more detail than he was ready to share at this point so he cried out. "No! Stop. Wait. I'll tell you!"

They stopped and waited for him to do so, but when he showed no indication of speaking Harry muttered "Arsehole!" viciously and started to turn back to Amelia. Dumbledore saw that if he didn't speak immediately he'd have Croaker ripping into his head again so he blurted out. "The portraits reported that night that they'd seen a very large snake heading down the corridor from the entrance to the Hufflepuff Common room!"

Harry sensed he was holding something back. "Did they report seeing anything else?"

"That is all they told me."

He was obviously lying so Harry turned to the Sorting Hat. "Myrddin, as you would have heard, the Headmaster has told us that the portraits reported seeing a very large snake heading away from the entrance of the Hufflepuff Common Room on the night of the attack in the Dungeons, but when I asked him if they reported seeing anything else that night he said that they had not. I believe that he is lying, can you ask Lady Hogwarts for me whether the portraits have reported seeing anything else in regard to this snake please?"

Myrddin nodded, saying "Most certainly My Lord." It wasn't long before he nodded again. "Apparently the snake was being accompanied by a student, a small blonde girl, My Lord."

Harry bowed to him. "I thank you for your assistance Myrddin, and please convey my thanks to Lady Hogwarts as well."

Myrddin nodded to him (as he couldn't bow), responding with. "We are your servants My Lord."

Harry's respectful demeanour disappeared as he turned on Dumbledore. "Why were you withholding that information Dumbledore?….. Oh of course! You were planning on finding the girl and using her to track the basilisk down before anyone else could so that everyone would be grateful to the great and wise Albus Fucking Dumbledore for being responsible for stopping the Monster of Hogwarts! You bastard! Who knows how many more would have died or been petrified while you were playing your games! You wouldn't have cared if this girl, who's probably been compelled to do this because most girls I know wouldn't be leading a giant ancient serpent around the castle by choice, died in the process either, would you?"

Dumbledore's frustration at being found out so easily flashed across his face. "No, I didn't think so!"

Harry turned his back on Dumbledore in disgust. "I know it isn't much to go on Auntie Ami, but hopefully this girl will be easier to track down than the Monster which apparently has only been found once in the last thousand years. I presume that the most logical place to start would be questioning the blonde girls, or perhaps all the girls, in Hufflepuff and Slytherin?"

Amelia nodded in frustration. "Yes…. If I can get enough female Aurors and patrol Officers in to do all four houses at once I will, but failing that I'll get them started on Hufflepuff and Slytherin tomorrow…. But we _should_ have gotten started on this as soon as it was reported! If the girl was compelled to do this, and you're right, she most probably was, there probably would have been signs of it which should have been easy to pick up at the time, but they're quite likely to be gone now because that was over a week ago….."

She glared at Dumbledore. "Rest assured that I'll be making sure that _everyone_ knows what you have done to hamper this investigation Dumbledore!"

He tried to give her a 'give it your best shot' look, but he was obviously panicking about how badly his plan had backfired. The old bastard _really_ raised Amelia's ire a few days later when she found out that it had been his warnings to his supporters' children to hide anything that might incriminate them before the Aurors arrived that triggered the next event in this mess.

* * *

A couple of hours after the discussion in Dumbledore's office, those of the family who were at Hogwarts were called back to the corridor outside Myrtle's toilets again, because there was a new message in blood on the wall. 'HER SKELETON WILL RESIDE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER'

They all had a sense of foreboding when they read that, but none of them were expecting the type of language that was coming from Harry when he suddenly started swearing. Lily grabbed his shoulders and shook him, shouting to get through to him. "_Harry!_ What are you swearing about?"

He turned around and said "I'm a bloody idiot, and no one else worked it out either!" before crossing the corridor and walking into the girls' toilets. They all followed him, of course, and he waited until everyone was in the toilets and the door was closed behind them before he called out. "Myrtle?"

She started berating him as soon as she floated out of one of the cubicles. "You're not supposed to be in here! These are the girls' toilets and you're a _boy_!"

Harry bowed to her as he cut her off (because there wasn't much point in waiting for a ghost to draw a breath). "I realise that it is inappropriate for me to be here Myrtle, but I need to ask some very important questions and I believe that you are the only one who can answer me…. I'm so sorry, I should have introduced myself first, I am Harry Potter, and I apologise in advance if the questions I need to ask are upsetting for you but I promise you that they are _very_ important, is that alright?"

Myrtle nodded, smiling at him now because many of the girls who came into her toilets had raved about Harry Potter.

"Thank you. The questions I need to ask are… What is your full name, and when, where and how did you die?"

Myrtle frowned, these were strange questions but it was the most attention anyone had given her in over forty five years so she was happy to go along with it to talk to the boy that all the girls had been gushing over, and he _was_ quite handsome….

"My name is Myrtle Elizabeth Warren, I died right here in these toilets on the Thirteenth of June Nineteen Forty Three….. but I'm not exactly sure _how_ I died. That cow Olive Hornby had been teasing me about my glasses so I ran in here and locked myself in one of the cubicles to have a good cry but then I heard scraping noises and a boy's voice, then some funny hissing sounds. I came out to tell him that he shouldn't be here because they were the _girls'_ toilets…. like I told you Harry… but all I saw when I came out was a pair of big, yellow eyes, and I just…. died…."

"Where did you see those eyes Myrtle?"

She pointed to the sinks at the far end. "They were somewhere over there near the sinks Harry."

"Have you seen anyone else doing anything unusual over there?"

"I haven't really _seen_ anything, but there was a blonde girl who's been in here a few times lately. I go and hide in my cubicle whenever I see her or hear scraping and hissing noises like I did the night I was killed though because I don't want to see the thing that killed me again. She came in again half an hour ago and I hid when she started hissing, I heard a lot of scraping noises after that but I didn't come out again until you called."

He nodded, saying "Thank you Myrtle, you've been a big help." before he headed to the sinks to see whether there was anything out of the ordinary about them. It didn't take long for Harry to find the snake scratched into one of the taps on the end sink, but when he twisted the tap and nothing happened, Myrtle brightly offered. "Oh that tap's never worked Harry!"

When he stopped to think about it, that made sense, because otherwise any random girl trying to wash her hands could have activated whatever was here…. There had to be some way to make this work… Of course! He concentrated on the snake scratched into the tap and said "_Open_" in parseltongue.

There was a scraping sound as the end sink and the wall behind it began to grind their way down into the floor. Myrtle squeaked and disappeared into her cubicle when the wall started sliding down, which pretty much confirmed that this was the same scraping sound as she'd heard previously. This was further confirmed by the seven or eight foot diameter opening that was revealed as the wall moved down.

* * *

Casting light into the opening, they could see that there was a big pipe that headed down at a steep angle, and the wall didn't seem to seal off the end of the pipe very well when it rose because there was a thin layer of rank mud and slime spread over the bottom of the pipe. Minerva frowned at the idea of trying to walk down that pipe, because that slime in the pipe looked slippery and the idea of losing her footing and ending up sliding down on her bum was far too undignified for her liking so she spoke up. "Salazar Slytherin would never have willingly done anything so undignified as to _slide_ down a pipe like that Harry, and I seriously doubt that Tom Riddle would either. There _must_ be some way to call for stairs or something."

Harry sighed. "I expect there is Auntie Minnie, but I have the awful feeling that that girl down there won't have the time to wait for us to trudge down what appears to be well over a thousand feet of stairs. I don't particularly like the idea of getting covered in that muck either but we need to get down there quickly, we need something like….." He broke off as he remembered something and grinned, conjuring a set of long wooden pattens with wedge shaped hardwood soles about four inches high which curved up at the front and would work as skates, he quickly made enough copies to supply everyone there and they were lacing them onto the bottom of their shoes and boots when Dumbledore stormed into the toilets.

The opening in the wall was obviously the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, which he'd been looking for for over forty five years, and he wasn't about to let them get at Salazar Slytherin's treasures before him, so he stood in front of the entrance and puffed himself up like the peacock he was. "Stop! I cannot allow you to desecrate such an important part of Hogwarts' history before I've had a chance to secure it for future generations!"

Harry had had it with this old bastard. He must have been notified when they were about the new message on the wall and he'd almost certainly waited outside until he heard that they'd gotten the entrance open before storming in to try and snatch the glory, but this wasn't about glory. "Get out of the way Dumbledore! There's a girl down there, one of _your_ students, and I seriously doubt that she's got enough time left for you to waste any of it!"

"No! Of course it would be unfortunate if the girl did not survive, but for the greater good I _must_ secure what's in Slytherin's chamber before anyone else enters it!"

Harry's only response to that was to say "Very well" and cast a wandless, non-verbal banishing charm at him to throw him into the pipe opening, giving a grim smile as he said "Oops!".

Listening to Dumbledore's terrified screaming growing quieter as he slid down the pipe he smirked at Minerva. "You were certainly right about sliding down the pipe like that being undignified Auntie Minnie!"

She tried to frown at him for making a joke of what he'd done but her unladylike snort of amusement belied her disapproval. Harry gave her a totally unrepentant grin as he gathered himself up and leapt into the pipe, crouching down with one foot forward and leaning forward as he headed down the pipe to give himself more stability and control. Luckily they all had ice skating experience, so they were comfortable with the idea of skating down the pipe, and settled into a similar stance to Harry's as they got going.

Harry used his animagus ability to enhance his senses as he headed down into the darkness, so he caught Dumbledore's sudden shriek and the solid 'thud' and then silence that closely followed it, so he was either unconscious or dead, either worked for Harry. He sensed what had made the old fool shriek just before he reached it, as the pipe suddenly levelled off. Given how soon after that the 'thud' had been, he started madly casting cushioning charms as soon as he hit the bend in the pipe and turned out to avoid Dumbledore and stop when the pipe entered a bigger tunnel, between the two he stopped against the wall of the tunnel without hurting himself.

He quickly summoned Dumbledore out of the way of the pipe opening and strengthened the cushioning charms because he could tell the girls were almost there. They knew what to expect as he told them over their links and he heard them calling back to do a skate stop right after the pipe levelled off, which was repeated by the ones behind them. It worked for the girls, as they stopped without hitting the wall and he summoned them out of the way. It worked for Lily, Pandora, Sirius and Amelia too but Minerva, Pomona, Filius, Alastor and Augusta didn't stop as well as they hadn't had much practice in recent decades, luckily all that was hurt was their pride.

They were tempted to leave Dumbledore as he was, but grudgingly agreed that they'd probably feel guilty if the basilisk or something else got him or he drowned while he was incapacitated so they revived him and fixed the few broken bones he got from hitting the wall. He was still insisting that he must go first so Harry gave him an evil smile and said "After you!" as he waved down the tunnel in the direction the basilisk had obviously come from, because mud and bones were piled up along the sides of the tunnel, while the floor in the other direction looked as though it hadn't been disturbed in centuries, probably because it hadn't.

Dumbledore started to dither when he was reminded about the basilisk and Harry's amusement disappeared in a flash. "There's a girl down here who's time is almost certainly running out. Either get going _now_ or get out of our way and stay here! The only way you're coming with us is if you're in front of us where we can see you because there's no way I'm giving you a chance to curse us in the back!"

The old bastard's dreams of getting his hands on Slytherin's treasure made him give in and start off down the tunnel in front of them, constantly bitching about the fact that he was ankle deep in mud and slush and god knows what because water had been seeping into the tunnels for the last forty five years at least so there were four or five inches of foul smelling watery mud covering the floor. He'd been going on like that for a while before it occurred to him to wonder why the rest of them didn't seem to be bothered by it and he looked back to see that they were still wearing the pattens Harry had conjured for them to use to come down the pipe so their shoes were mostly high and dry. When he stopped to complain about that Harry fixed him with a look that loosened his bowels as he said. "Keep moving or we'll stun you and leave you here!"

Soon after that they saw something up ahead of them, but the life form detection charms they kept casting didn't show any sign of life from it. Dumbledore was almost the last one to see it and Harry shook his head in disgust when he did, because he shrieked. If that _had_ been the basilisk, he might have gotten the lot of them killed. It was actually a cast off basilisk skin that was about twenty five or so feet long, which according to what Gringotts' Beast Master had told them should mean that it had been between a hundred and fifty and two hundred years old at the time, which would probably place the time of shedding as just before Salazar Slytherin died and sealed the basilisk into the Chamber of Secrets. They cast life form detection charms up the tunnel it was sitting in the mouth of but found no sign of life up there, just like the other side tunnels they'd passed.

The main tunnel finished in a chamber soon after that, with massive silver doors which were secured by silver snake locking bars. They all kicked off their pattens as Harry said "_Open_" again in Parseltongue, and no-one disagreed with Hermione's comment that the snakes were disturbingly lifelike as they slithered out of the way to allow the doors to open. As they ground open, it was revealed that the doors were over a foot thick and Filius went to examine them more closely. He made it look as though he was trying to determine what the enchantments on them were but he caught Harry's eye and mouthed "_They're made from solid Myddril!_" to him in Goblin when Dumbledore was looking the other way. Harry just nodded, trying to cover up his reaction, but he was shocked because that much Myddril would be worth an absolute fortune, more than the entire fortunes of any but the very richest families in Magical Britain!

They cast more life form detection charms into the Chamber as the doors were opening, but the only reading they were getting was from the far end of the chamber, in front of the thirty foot high bust of Salazar Slytherin that went from the floor to the ceiling. That made them feel a little more secure, but the fact that wards over the chamber entrance prevented anyone but the one who spoke the password to open the chamber from entering certainly didn't. The looks Hermione, Luna and Lily were giving him as the chamber doors closed just confirmed what Hermione and Luna were telling him over their links, that if he got himself killed in there they'd be making his afterlife Hell!

**AN: I always thought that all the absolutes in the basilisk descriptions were ridiculous, and the idea that there was a market for basilisk parts when they supposedly hadn't existed for at least 500 years even more so. Then there was the petrification angle, as demi-gods, the Gorgons turning people to stone as punishment is one thing, but there's no sense in a beast, or even a dark creature, turning its prey to stone, because that's just a recipe for starvation, how are they supposed to get nourishment from stones, and what would trying to swallow large pointy stone objects do to their insides? IMHO the conventional usage of 'petrified' makes much more sense, as it's logical to be done by meeting its gaze and immobilises their prey and allows them to swallow them easily. FWIW**


	7. Familiarity

**I expect most people will have noticed that there have been a few changes to this story. While some of them, like the name, may appear to be a big thing, the fact is they aren't really, they're mostly just things that haven't seemed quite right to me from the start so I eventually gave in to the overwhelming need to change them. I had originally called this story Witches Coven, but I talked myself into changing it and have been regretting it ever since so I've changed it back to stop that voice nagging me. For the sake of argument the Coven's name changed at the same time the Druids Council became the Wizards Council, around 1000 AD.**

**The same goes for changing the cludgy 'Magical Family' to 'Wizard Family'. The line on the 100 year rule is that it was imposed when Wizard Families were defined in the Tenth Century to try and prevent Wizards who had been bribed with titles by British Kings to come across from the old countries to serve them from immediately using their new titles to create magical fiefdoms and subjugate British Witches and Wizards.**

**Druid Families had ****had**** family member****s ****who'd made significant contribution****s**** as**** part of ****Magical Britain's ****formal ****Druids/****Wizards**** Council****s**** or Druidesses/****Witches**** Coven****s****, ****the Heads of the ****Druid ****Families ****were ****all ****made ****Lairds ****at the end of the Fifteenth Century by the King****s ****of ****the Three Kingdoms****. Druid Houses had ****had**** family member****s ****serve**** as**** part of**** the Druids/****Wizards**** Council of Britain or Druidesses/****Witches**** Coven of Britain, ****the Heads of the ****Druid ****Houses ****were ****all ****made Minor Barons ****at the end of the Fifteenth Century whether they had other titles or not****. **

**Wizard Families ****had ****either ****had family member****s**** do something ****that was ****deemed by the ****Druids/****Wizards Council ****of Britain ****to ****have**** significant****ly benefited Magical Britain****, or ****had ****been active****ly working ****in the interests of**** Magical Britain for over 100 years. ****V****ery few Most Ancient Wizard Families ****had been ****established****, the most ****famous**** of these ****being**** that of Salazar Slytherin's Brother-In-Law, Corvinus Gaunt, who ****followed the process**** to have ****his ****family recognised as magical at Salazar's recommendation. ****Unless they ****had been ****recognised as ****a Druid Family, ****anyone wishing to ****have a family seat**** on the Wizengamot**** had to ****get**** their family ****recognised as a Wizard ****F****amily ****as the first step towards ****becoming a Noble or Minor House.**

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to anything from JKR's stories.**

As the closing doors cut Harry off from the others, Hermione and Luna continued to send the messages that they and his Mum had been sending with the looks they were giving him as the doors closed, and after living mostly with women since he was just turned eight he knew better than to comment about the fact that the threat of bloody retribution if he did anything stupid to get himself killed was a direct contradiction to the promise of love and support they were all sending him. He didn't doubt either message, or that the three witches who were the centre of his world would find a way to follow through on the threat of retribution in the afterlife if their love and support didn't manage to stop him doing anything stupid.

With that in mind, Harry kept casting life detection charms around him as he progressed towards Grandpa Salazar's bust and watching the shadows for any sort of movement, because while these charms were supposed to display any living things in range, he hadn't forgotten that basilisk skin was more magic resistant than any other creature's, and they didn't know whether that resistance increased as they got older and more powerful. With goblin bred basilisks being killed and harvested long before they were a hundred and fifty years old, there was no way of testing this, so they had no way of knowing whether an ancient basilisk would be uncovered by the detection charms or not.

The fact that the flickering flames of the magical torches that lit the chamber made it appear that the carved serpents that festooned the columns supporting the ceiling of the chamber were moving didn't do anything to reduce the tension. He could see an open space at the other end of the chamber and he hurried towards it, hoping to get away from worrying that a serpent could be right beside him without his knowledge, but that hope was dashed when he reached the beginning of the open space, because there were large pools on either side of the walkway leading up to Salazar's bust and the basilisk…. or _basilisks_, the legends never really said that there was only one…. Could be hiding under the water beside him without his knowledge.

Harry tried to put that out of his mind as he hurried down the walkway to the small figure he could see laying at the base of Salazar's bust. As he grew close to the figure he realised that he knew the girl and had talked to her a few times, it was Penny Clearwater, a friend of Susan's… and others of their group in Third Year, but especially Susan. He quickly cast diagnostic scans over her which confirmed that she was alive and not physically harmed, but her life force was weak and repeated scans showed that it was fading noticeably for some reason. He fell to his knees and tried to wake her, shaking her shoulder and calling out. "Penny? Penny, come on, wake up, we need to get out of here before the basilisk shows up..."

* * *

His attempts to wake her were abruptly cut short by a voice behind him. "She won't wake up..."

Harry spun to his feet with the Elder Wand in his hand, if this got serious he'd be replacing it with one of his older heirloom weapons but he didn't want to show his hand just yet. A boy who looked around the same age as him had stepped out of the shadows at the base of Salazar's bust. Two questions were going through Harry's head, why hadn't he seen him before and why hadn't he shown up on the life scans? No three, why could he see through him? And questions Two and Three led to yet another question, was he a ghost?

"Who are you, and what do you mean about Penny not waking up?"

"I'm Tom, Tom Riddle, and you are?"

Oh great, just what he needed, but if he played this right he may be able to get him to give up some information, and buy some more time for Penny.

"Harry Potter, but you haven't explained what you said about Penny not waking up."

"Ah, the famous Harry Potter! No, I didn't answer your question, did I? Would you prefer the short answer, or would you like the full story?"

"I want to know how to revive Penny, but why don't we start with the short answer?"

"Well the short answer is that once she started writing in my diary, she came under my control. I am not overly happy that someone transfigured the outside of my diary to make it look like something which would belong to some silly schoolgirl, but I can't really complain because it worked to snare me a subject who is strong and relatively unsullied. While she is not the Pure Blood she was supposed to be she seems to be sufficient to be bringing me back, though I presume this Susan the diary was supposed to go to would have been better as Abraxas is no fool and he would have taken all due care in choosing the proper subject to give the diary to, this Lockhart must have taken it upon himself to change the plan..."

He broke off when Harry snorted. "Is there something amusing about what I said Harry Potter?"

"I was just wondering what year you thought this was? By the way, I presume that you're referring to Abraxas _Malfoy_?"

"I must admit I had paid no attention to the date…. I had just presumed it to be sometime in the Nineteen Seventies…. Now that you mention it though, I didn't recognise _any_ of the students here... And yes, I _am_ referring to Abraxas Malfoy."

"Hmmm, just as a matter of interest, what's the last date you remember?"

Tom was getting aggravated by this boy. "The last events I remember were in Nineteen Sixty Nine, why is that relevant?"

"It's relevant because we're now coming into December Nineteen _Eighty_ Nine and Abraxas Malfoy has been dead for nearly ten years, so you're a little out of date! His son Lucius is Head of the Malfoy Family now, but he's hiding from the DMLE at the moment so if Lockhart has been working with him with any luck the idiot will be arrested for aiding a fugitive."

Riddle mused. "Yes… I remember Abraxas' son… he was halfway through Hogwarts when I gave Abraxas the diary for safe keeping. Abraxas would have passed the responsibility on to him..."

Harry cut him off. "And you _still_ haven't told me why my friend Penny won't wake up."

Tom chuckled. "No I haven't, have I? Well there's no harm in telling you because there's nothing you can do about it now. Your friend will not wake up because I've been drawing magical energy from her and taking control of her since she first activated my diary. I had enough of a hold over her by the time I heard in her mind that the DMLE were coming to try and locate the girl who was leading Lord Salazar's familiar around the castle to force her to come down here so that I would have the time to drain all her energy into the diary and regain my body without interruption. There is no longer any way to stop the process before she is totally drained and I am returned to a corporeal form, but enough of that…. We have more important things to discuss than some silly Half Blood who's fulfilling her purpose, tell me how you managed to defeat Lord Voldemort, the greatest wizard in centuries! That silly girl knew nothing of any value."

Harry kept surreptitiously casting the diagnostic charms at Penny and he saw that her life force was fading a lot more slowly when Riddle was concentrating on him, so he kept him talking.

"How do you know about Voldemort, and how do you remember anything from Nineteen Sixty Nine for that matter? Your robes seem to be from the same era as Myrtle, and she died back in Forty Three…. And by the way, everyone knows that _Professor Dumbledore_ is the greatest wizard in centuries..."

Riddle laughed at him. "I do not know _about_ Lord Voldemort you stupid boy, I _am_ Lord Voldemort!"

He waved a wand, Penny's presumably, and fiery letters that spelled out 'TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE' appeared in mid-air, then he slashed the wand across the words and the letters rearranged themselves into 'I AM LORD VOLDEMORT'.

Harry gave an involuntary shudder at the evidence that Riddle could not only hold, but _use_ a wand, that put paid to the idea of him being a ghost. He just hoped that that wand was a bad match for Riddle/Voldemort so he'd be able to defeat him if they crossed wands.

Riddle left the name hanging there as he continued. "I convinced those fools at Hogwarts that I was the newly accepted Lord of my house, but I was remaining incognito because members of my house wanted to kill me and take my title. As for how I know about events in Nineteen Sixty Nine when I appear to be from an earlier time, I created the diary and saved my image in it in Nineteen Forty Three when I was sixteen, but I kept adding my memories to it up until Nineteen Sixty Nine when I gave it to Abraxas for safekeeping, so I will return with the appearance and vigour of a wizard in his teens, but the knowledge of one in his forties…."

"And I bested that fool Dumbledore and everyone else when I was sixteen, so I am _obviously_ a greater wizard than him! I had to cover my tracks after I used that stupid Warren girl for a more advanced ritual than any of them were capable of in Forty Three, so I framed that Half Breed oaf Hagrid and his pet for killing her. It was a simple matter to convince Dippet to expel him and snap his wand, though if I'd known that Dumbledore would stop him being sent to Azkaban and actually get him hired as the Gamekeeper's assistant I would have made sure that the oaf was executed…. I had to put up with watching the stupid oaf bumbling around Hogwarts for another two years before I left because my plans depended on me getting my NEWTs..."

* * *

Even though the drain on Penny's magic had slowed while Harry kept Riddle focussed on him, she was still getting weaker, so Harry decided that he needed to try and get Riddle upset enough to break the link to her and come after him….. He smiled as he thought of something that should do the job.

"Thomas Marvolo Riddle! I, Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses, hereby challenge you to an honour duel under the rules of Druid Law for your cowardly murder of my father Duke James Charlus Potter Peverell, your attempted murder of my mother, Duchess Lily Rose Potter Peverell and myself, falsely assigning guilt for your crimes against Myrtle Warren and other Hogwarts students in Nineteen Forty Three to Laird Rubeus Hagrid, Head of the Ancient Druid Family of Hagrid and Vassal of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Potter, and your attempted murder of Miss Penelope Anne Clearwater, Heiress to the Ancient Wizard Family of Clearwater. Will you face me or will you concede and agree to pay whatever compensation I deem appropriate?"

Riddle was confused, as like most Muggle-Born and Raised, he'd never really learnt the forms of Noble House Etiquette and Law, but his ego would only allow him to give one answer. "I accept your challenge!"

Harry gave up trying to tune out the girls asking what the hell he was trying to do and snapped at them to shut up and let him deal with Riddle.

It was no great surprise when Riddle's shade attacked before they'd followed the accepted forms to begin the duel, so Harry was ready for him and easily batted away the curses being thrown at him, but he got a nasty surprise when he tried to return the spell fire, because his hexes, charms and curses were having next to no effect on Riddle's shade. Harry wasn't the only one getting worried about this though, because while they weren't having _much_ effect on Riddle, they _were_ having an effect and the idea of being destroyed as a shade was enough to make him break off and turn to Salazar's bust, calling out a flowery phrase in Parseltongue.

Harry started to snort in derision, but that was cut off when the chin of the bust began to grind down like the wall in Myrtle's toilets had, revealing an opening as big as the one in the toilets. In the silence that had fallen over the chamber, he heard a faint scraping sound and then an enormous head emerged from the opening, followed by a body that didn't seem to stop, it must have been three times the size of the shed skin out in the tunnel.

Luckily the girls were making an effort to keep their screams at the sight of the basilisk to gasps so he could try and concentrate on how the hell he was going to deal with this monster…. The legends got that part right, anyway.

When the basilisk went to Riddle's shade and asked what his wishes were, he smiled smugly and pointed at Harry, saying "_Kill him!_" in Parseltongue. Luna whispered over their link that the basilisk had not been Salazar's pet, it was his _familiar_! That gave Harry an idea, so before it could come at him he cried out "_Stop!_" in Parseltongue. When it did, confused to discover that there were _two_ speakers there, he went on.

"_You were the familiar of Lord Salazar Slytherin, were you not?_"

It nodded. "_Yes._"

"_Then you must be able to recognise by my magical signature that __**I**__ am the current Lord Slytherin, so I am your true master!_"

It was obviously confused as it looked back and forth between Harry and Riddle's shade, but in the end it said. "_No! It is true that you are __the current__ Lord Slytherin and the other __one __was never a true heir of Slytherin, but he __**is**__ of Slytherin blood and h__e__ is more __true to__ my Lord Salazar's __thoughts __than you __are__. I submitted to his will when he called me forth __before__ and he remains my master!_"

Harry sent the Elder Wand into its holster and called the Potter shield and great spear to him as the basilisk began to move towards him. He'd left them configured as the mirror shield that only the original Druid Lords and the High Goblin Chieftains of the Goblin Clans and their personal guards had ever received and an eight foot long spear that was six feet of 'shaft' and two feet of blade so that he could call them in an instant like this, but as he did so Luna called for Ushas to help him and she flashed into existence right in front of the basilisk. Ushas attacked the only vulnerable part of the basilisk, its eyes, which gave him a chance to run past it with the mirror shield held high to protect him from its gaze, as he would have a better chance if he was fighting it among the columns than he would out here where it could move more freely.

Ushas used her talons to gouge into the surface one of the basilisk's eyes and then flamed out in a big ball of flame as she had when she was matching her behaviour to Dumbledore's flashy personality to melt the eye, diving in to do the same to its other eye while it was reeling back, keening in pain from having its eye burnt out, so in the space of thirty seconds she had taken away its deadliest weapon, its lethal gaze, and it was now focussed on trying to catch her and get retribution for what she had done to it.

That didn't give Harry more than a brief respite though, because Riddle's shade was shouting at the basilisk in Parseltongue. "_Forget the bird! Use your other senses to find and kill him!_" The basilisk's need to obey the one it had accepted as its master overcame its rage at Ushas and it pulled back, ignoring Ushas' continuing attacks because she couldn't harm it aside from its eyes.

The basilisk reached out with its other senses to find Harry, following his scent towards the columns. Harry had vanished his shield once he got into the columns because it would just get in his way if he needed to move quickly, so he just had the spear in his hands. He was getting enough from Ushas to know that the basilisk was coming after him and how to avoid it, but he could see that it was managing to track his movements to a degree, because whenever he moved it changed direction to come after him. There was another problem though, as he was still casting diagnostic charms at Penny whenever he had the chance and now that it was the basilisk that was coming after him instead of Riddle, her life force was being drained faster, so if it took him too long to deal with the basilisk she would be lost.

The basilisk was also apparently more cunning than he expected (possibly because it had been Salazar's familiar), because by the time he realised that it was herding him back towards the open space in front of Salazar's bust it was too late to get around it, even conjuring decoys to distract it didn't give him enough time to get past it.

In the end the images he was getting from Ushas gave him the time he needed to get ready for the basilisk as it came around the column he was hiding behind and he thrust the spear up through the roof of its mouth into its brain and sent a blasting curse through the spear to, in non-magical parlance, blow its brains out.

Harry stepped back as he tried to come down from the adrenalin rush of defying death like that, but he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings so he had to desperately dive to one side as he spun around when Ushas came around the column and sent him an urgent image of _another_ basilisk rising out of the pool behind him to strike at him. He brought the spear up as he did so and frantically sent another blasting curse through it as he felt it bite into something, but he was sent flying as the basilisk's head hit him.

He didn't need anyone to tell him that something was seriously wrong as he rolled across the chamber floor in agony, because his leg was on fire and that burning was quickly spreading up his body. When he looked down, he saw nearly a foot of the basilisk's broken off fang embedded in his leg, which had gone right through so the tip was sticking out the other side. He went to pull the fang out, but he was reminded of the intense corrosive qualities of basilisk venom by the burning that was coursing through his body so he used the hem of his robes to protect his hand as he pulled it out and dropped it on the floor, he was in enough pain without getting his hand burnt as well.

Riddle had come to watch him being destroyed, and while he was furious about losing Salazar Slytherin's two great basilisks, he wasn't about to miss out on the chance to gloat at the whelp who had supposedly defeated him eight years ago as he died. He thought he had the perfect opportunity when Dumbledore's phoenix which had aided him landed beside the boy and start crying on him.

"See boy, even Dumbledore's pet phoenix knows you've lost! How does it feel to know that the only one who will mourn your passing is a bird that had to be sent by here by his master? Remember this lesson as you die boy, you are _nothing_ and you mean nothing to _anyone!…_."

Wait…. What was going on? The boy had been obviously dying in excruciating pain before, how could he be sitting up and _smiling _now? Oh no! He'd forgotten about the healing effects of phoenixes' tears! He tried to shoo the bird away from the boy but it was too late, as its tears had already countered the basilisk venom in his blood.

Harry stroked Ushas' head. "Thanks Ushas, you were brilliant! You not only blinded the first basilisk and gave me a chance against it, you saved my life!"

The phoenix trilled at him and took off, then the boy turned to Riddle's shade, laughing. "How does it feel to be wrong about _everything_ Tom? I didn't interrupt you before because I was hoping that you'd tell me something I didn't know, but I've already faced another version of you about a month ago. That version was the shade of the Tom Riddle who killed my father and tried to kill Mum and I eight years ago but the protections my Mum placed over me were still working well enough to destroy his host…. And don't insult Ushas by calling her Dumbledore's pet, she _never_ belonged to him, not even when he used dark magic to bind her to him and he thought she was male and called Fawkes!…."

He was cut off by Ushas dropping the diary on the floor beside the fang and sending him the thought that he needed to destroy it because it was anchoring Riddle to this realm. He used another part of his robes to grab the fang and stabbed it into the diary a few times before letting go and quickly casting the binding spell on the diary to prevent the shade that was being sucked screaming into the diary from escaping.

The finality of the way the shade was sucked back into the diary reminded him of the formal challenge he'd issued to Riddle, so he completed the ritual. "I, Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, hereby claim all magic, titles, holdings and assets rightfully belonging to Thomas Marvolo Riddle by right of conquest!"

He felt the magic judging him and then there was a flash as his claim was accepted, but the process made him feel more drained than he'd expected it to and he didn't seem to gain anything from it, so perhaps all he'd get out of it was the family title. He shrugged, as he'd mainly challenged Riddle to distract him anyway.

* * *

Harry was watching in sick fascination as a disturbing _wrongness_ was roiling around the diary, until Luna urgently sent a message over their link to get away from it because she could _see_ other pieces of dark magic being drawn to where he was and she thought something bad was about to happen. He called the spear to him and used it to haul himself to his feet and support him as he hobbled to where Penny was trying to sit up, sinking down beside her and helping her sit up but watching the growing bubble of wrongness around the diary. He saw something happening there even before Luna cried out "Watch out!" and cast a strong shield over himself and Penny, so that when it sort of exploded, they were protected from the blast.

That blast was felt outside the chamber, so Hermione and Luna were frantically calling out to him to ask if he was alright. He knew he was going to get it for worrying them but he couldn't respond to them straight away because that external blast was only part of what happened. He was simultaneously blasted with the magic he thought he wasn't getting from Riddle, because apparently magic didn't consider it done until all those other pieces of magic that Luna had _seen_ were included and then it filtered what was collected and rejected what it considered wrong, for want of a better term.

The end result was that Harry's head felt like it was exploding and he knew far more about dark spells and rituals than he wanted to, but he also had acquired the wealth of arcane Parselmagic that made up the Gaunt Family Magic (and even more that didn't seem to be related to the Gaunts) and felt as though the magic in him was straining at the seams. He expected that when he was scanned they'd find that his magic had expanded quite a bit. He gave the girls a hasty explanation as he helped Penny to her feet and then they headed for the doors, but after a few steps he levitated her a couple of inches off the floor and guided her along with an arm around her shoulders because she was so drained that she could hardly stay awake.

Before they left the chamber, he pulled out his communications mirror and expanded it enough to act as a transportation floo before calling Uncle Ragnok and asking him to step through. Luckily Ragnok's outburst when he turned around and saw the two basilisks was in High Goblin, because it most certainly wasn't suitable language for a young lady to hear, but to the best of their knowledge, no-one in the Wizarding world outside of their immediate family spoke High Goblin. Harry smiled as he though about how terrified most people in the Wizarding world who recognised Ragnok would have been to hear that much shock and anger being expressed by the Leader of the Goblin Nations, but he settled down after a while. He was still speaking High Goblin as he addressed Harry though.

"_Would you care to explain how there are not one but **two** basilisks of legendary proportions here __Nephew__?_"

"_I don't have long to discuss this Uncle Ragnok, because Mum and the girls are outside those doors and they're upset, but the short answer is that we found the last of Riddle's soul anchors. Apparently Lucius Malfoy had it and he found a way to get it into Hogwarts, they'd __apparently __planned for it to go to Susan so Auntie Ami's going to go on a rampage __when she hears that __but Penny here somehow intercepted it. I think she was trying to __protect Sue by finding__ out who was trying to get to __her__ but she was possessed by the soul anchor herself. It turned out that Riddle was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets in Forty Three and he managed to get Slytherin's familiars to serve him..._"

He waved to the basilisks and Ragnok's eyes widened. "_They were __**both**__ familiars?_"

Harry nodded. "_Yes, I expect that before he went mad Salazar Slytherin considered the fact that one beast on its own would be likely to succumb to insanity over the centuries so he arranged for it to have a mate. Being a familiar became a problem though when the f__emale__, and I thought **only**, __basilisk__ decided to keep serving Riddle rather than me as the current Lord Slytherin, because he was closer to Salazar's thought patterns at the end after he went crazy. Anyway, __Ushas came to me and she managed to destroy the female's eyes to give me a chance against it and I managed to stick the spear into its brain and send a blasting curse through it, but as I was trying to get my breath back she came around the column and warned me that the male had come out of the pool and was striking at me from behind. I managed to kill it with a blasting curse to the brain as well but it had caught me so I had the tip of one of its fangs broken off in my thigh. Ushas healed me with her tears and then brought the diary to me, indicating that it was a soul anchor so I stabbed it with the fang that went through my thigh __and cast the spells to seal the dark magic into it__…. I also claimed all of Riddle's magic, titles, holdings and assets by right of conquest because I tricked him into an honour duel to distract him and that seemed to turn the soul anchor into __some sort of__ magic bomb as it collected all of Riddle's magic and then exploded __once it had filtered out what was too foul to pass on__. That's part of what Mum and the girls are worried about because they felt the explosion outside the doors…. Oh yeah, that's another thing, those doors are over a foot thick and Uncle Filius says that they're solid Mydrril, so __please__ swear everyone you bring in to process things in here to a Clan Secret. Unfortunately Dumbledore's out there too so I'd like to have the tunnels out there collapsed __and the chamber warded__ so that it is impossible to get in here except __via__ our magical transport._"

Ragnok shook his head at him. "_I will see to it, but why can you _**_n_**_**ever** find a safe way to resolve the problems you face Nephew?_"

Harry gave him a wry grin. "_It's not my fault Uncle Ragnok, these things just keep happening to me! Anyway, I need to get Penny to Auntie Poppy because she's just about drained and I need to show Mum and the Girls, and the rest of my Aunts, that we're both okay._"

Ragnok nodded and walked them to the doors, standing out of sight off to the side when Harry called for them to open in Parseltongue. Hermione and Luna raced up and jumped on him the moment he exited the chamber, so Harry gave Uncle Filius a grateful smile when he felt him taking over control of Penny's levitation. Harry was just grateful they were so focussed on making sure that he was whole to take the time to look at what had everyone else's attention as they looked into the chamber, the two enormous basilisk carcasses down near the far end of the chamber. He caught the greed on Dumbledore's face when he saw the basilisk carcasses and made a mental note to make sure that the goblins collected that shed skin and then sealed off and collapsed the tunnels before the old bastard could find a way to get back down here.… The pipe down from Myrtle's toilets too for that matter.

Harry turned away from Dumbledore and saw Uncle Filius looking concerned as he scanned Penny. He could understand that look because he was worried about how low her energy levels were too. At that he made a snap decision, asking Hermione and Luna over their links to pop Penny and Uncle Filius up to the infirmary and whispering to Auntie Minnie that they were going to do what they could to protect Penny, and part of which would be obliviating Dumbledore of everything he'd seen and heard since before he left his office to rush down to Myrtle's toilets.

Minerva didn't hesitate, she just nodded and gave him a push, telling him to get on with it and she'd fill the others in on what they were doing.

When Hermione and Luna disappeared with Penny and Filius, Dumbledore and some of the others wanted to know what was going on but Harry spoke over the top of them.

"Quiet! Penny is very weak because the spirit that was possessing her was also draining her, so the girls used their ability as Founders' heirs to apparate her and Professor Flitwick up to Myrtle's toilets to take Penny to the infirmary to help Madam Pomfrey heal her. I am going up to get checked over as well and we will return as soon as we have news of how Penny is. You're probably best off waiting for us here where it's dry because Professor Flitwick told me that the entrance in Myrtle's toilet was closing as we came down, he almost didn't get through."

With that he popped away before Dumbledore could think to demand that he take him with him.

* * *

When he arrived in the infirmary with a quiet 'pop' the others were all gathered around Penny's bed. Poppy was looking concerned as she cast diagnostic scans over her, but not overly so, which Harry took to mean that her condition wasn't life threatening. Poppy and Filius knew about their abilities and Poppy agreed that Hermione channelling the ley line energy into Penny would probably be the best way to get her energy levels back up to what they should be, so she monitored Penny as Hermione pushed the energy into her, telling her to stop when it started to get above what she would be expected to have in normal conditions.

Hermione stopped him when Harry suggested that they go back and retrieve the others though. "You're not going anywhere until Auntie Poppy has checked you out!"

Poppy looked between the two of them, trying to work out what was going on, but a glance at Luna and Filius made it clear they were looking forward to the show.

"What do you need to be checked out for Harry, what happened to you down there?"

"It wasn't anything to worry about Auntie Poppy…."

"_What the hell do you call that basilisk bite on your thigh?_"

"_**What?**_"

It only seemed to take Poppy seconds to have him on the bed beside Penny with the leg of his trousers vanished so that she could examine the bite and cast diagnostic scans over him.

When she had grudgingly admitted that the scans didn't show anything wrong with him and her heart rate had settled down she asked.

"Would you like to explain how you are not only alive and apparently fine, but the wound that went right through your thigh is healed except for the entry and exit scars young man?"

"When Ushas cried on the wound the burning as the poison went through my body faded away and all the poison seemed to be coming back out through the bite and evaporating. It only seemed to take a minute or two between when it was burning its way through my veins and spreading over my body to when the hole had closed up, my leg still hurt like hell but that was just residual pain I think…. By the way, you should vanish this bedding and mattress Auntie Poppy, I had basilisk venom on my clothes too and I don't think that's something you want anyone without phoenix tears in their blood touching."

She looked thoughtful at that. "No, you're quite correct about that, in fact I want you to go straight into that bathroom, vanish everything you're currently wearing and wash yourself thoroughly then get dressed in fresh clothes from the skin out." She looked at Hermione and Luna. "And that goes for you two as well as I'm sure you've been in contact with him since he came out of the Chamber… Go on! I'll get the elves to bring you fresh clothes."

They toddled off to do as they were told with "Yes Auntie Poppy"s as Poppy scanned Filius for any trace of venom on him. She and Filius were still discussing the situations those three got themselves into and shaking their heads when the three students came out of the bathroom. Poppy scanned them all for any residual venom traces before she let them return to where the others were waiting.

None of them were too surprised when Dumbledore made snarky comments about them taking their time having showers and getting changed while everyone else was trapped down in the tunnels with no way out, but they just ignored him and started popping everyone up to the hallway near his office. Needless to say he was even more narky when he was one of the last ones to be taken out of the tunnels.

Everyone else was in on the plan by then, so they just made sure that no-one else could see them and obliviated Dumbledore of the last couple of hours, leaving while he was too confused to register who was was there. The portraits Dumbledore had had placed near Myrtle's toilets had been those of people personally loyal to him rather than Hogwarts, so they had called some elves to collect them and move them into out of the way abandoned storerooms that gave them no way of identifying where they were before they left the infirmary.

One good thing about portraits was that their memory of events while they were portraits was rather flaky, so without something to prompt them the portraits in the Headmaster's office weren't likely to bring up what he'd been doing before he left and with any luck Dumbledore would just put the missing time down to doing something boring (like work) that he couldn't be bothered remembering.

* * *

Another thing that worked in their favour was that while the sheeple of magical Britain swallowed all of the supposedly _brilliant_ Albus Dumbledore's self advertising without question, the vast majority of the stories about the _Great _Albus Dumbledore really should have started with 'Once upon a time'. After all, being hailed as brilliant by most of Magical Britain wasn't so impressive when the facts clearly showed that they'd been actively driving out their best and brightest for the last two or three hundred years purely because they _weren't_ inbred idiots who came from the shallow end of the gene pool.

One thing that the Ministry of Magic would never admit, if in fact they knew it in the first place, was that the Goblin Nations had access to all the same raw information as the wizarding governments right across the Magical world. The key difference was that the goblins valued knowledge so they carefully filed and used _every_ piece of knowledge they were getting, not just the bits that supported their agendas. This meant that the British Goblin Nation had records which clearly showed that between those they called Muggle-Borns, Half-Bloods, Squibs and Werewolves, Wizarding Britain had consistently driven out over half of every generation for the last two centuries, and most of the best and brightest of each generation were among them.

The population of Magical Britain had tended to remain fairly static at thirty to forty thousand over this period, ever widening the gap between it and non-magical Britain, which was over twice the size it had been at the end of the Eighteenth Century. In Grindelwald's War and the Blood War the population of Wizarding Britain taken even more of a hit because the war losses were added to the forcible rejection of anyone the so-called Pure-Bloods deemed unworthy, which had dried up their gene pool even further because most of those who died in the wars weren't _proper_ Pure-Bloods.

The declining intellectual and magical ability of the sheeple who made up most of _Magical_ Britain weren't the only damage done to the country by the Pure-Bloods though. In their last two centuries of dominance over the Wizengamot, Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts, they had aggressively blocked nearly every meaningful advance in knowledge and technology. Other parts of the magical world that weren't under the Pure-Bloods' control had learned from the advances made in the non-magical world and kept enough in step with the non-magical world that they could mingle in that world without screaming 'Look at me, I don't belong here!', but those raised in the Pure-Blood enclaves (and Magical Britain was just one big Pure-Blood enclave) couldn't be trusted to go anywhere _near_ the non-magical world without threatening the Statute of Secrecy. Their so-called 'Muggle Studies' course was for the most part a century out of date and they made no attempt to cover up the fact that they regarded all _Muggles_ as being something less than village idiots who could never be a threat to _Wizards_. They also called everyone who tried to explain to them that no matter how powerful they thought they were, they had no chance of beating the ten to one odds against non-magical Britain's Military, let alone the two _hundred_ to one odds against non-magical Britain as a whole liars.

The important part of that though was that Albus Dumbledore was unlikely to cotton onto the fact that his knowledge of where the Chamber of Secrets was or what happened there had been removed.

* * *

They had been discussing what happened in the Chamber of Secrets for a while in Harry, Hermione and Luna's chambers when Ragnok came through to fill them in on what the goblins had come up with. His news was a mixture of good and bad, both to the extreme. One of the first things he raised was that Harry would need to return to the chamber to give them access to anything outside of the main chamber because their curse breakers had discovered the hard way that the wards struck back against anyone but a Parselmouth of Slytherin blood trying to access anything in there.

As far as the basilisks went, the female was around seventy five feet long and the male was over ninety feet long, and between them and the mountain of shed skins in their den, they would yield far more than the last century of basilisk harvesting had when rendered. Luckily the most valuable parts extracted would keep well enough that they could afford to release them slowly and maintain their value.

Their silversmiths had also confirmed what Filius told Harry when the doors were opening, they were solid Mydrril and represented more refined Mydrril than they had on hand in the world at the moment. Once they were demounted and melted down, the Mydrril could also be released slowly so that it maintained its value, which could could conceivably double the worth of the House of Potter with the basilisks added in.

Other interesting news was what he had successfully claimed by right of conquest from Tom Riddle, who by the way was now confirmed as dead, as were many of the remaining marked Death Eaters. Apparently the pieces of dark magic that Luna had _seen_ being drawn to the diary when the last piece of Riddle's soul was being destroyed had been pulled from the Death Eaters' Dark Marks, and as far as the goblins could tell every marked Death Eater had either died or ended up in St Mungo's when that happened.

The most interesting part of that though was that while the Most Ancient Wizard Family of Gaunt had been stripped of just about everything but the shack outside Little Haggleton, its Wizard Family title and the Family Magic when the Gaunts squandered their fortune, it turned out that the Riddles were descended from a Squib line of the dormant but intact Noble House of Fitzroy. This meant that as well as the Riddles' Baronetcy, estate and fortune (Which Tom Riddle had never been able to touch because he couldn't prove his claim in the non-magical world. The Baronetcy in no way invalidated their position that he was a _common_ Muggle-Born bastard because a Baronetcy isn't a _Noble_ title.) Harry acquired the British titles of Baron Fitzroy, Head of the Noble and Ancient Wizard House of Fitzroy, along with the associated holdings, estates and vaults. This Squib line also represented the last of the Ancient Noble French bloodline of Fitzhugh which had otherwise been wiped out in the French Revolution, so Harry _also_ won the French titles of Comte Fizthugh, Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Fitzhugh and the associated holdings, estates and vaults. If Riddle hadn't held Muggles and goblins in such contempt and had performed the formal inheritance tests, he could have been an _actual_ Lord with status and fortunes in both Britain and France.

* * *

That was where the good news finished though, because they had taken Penny Clearwater to the Healers Hall under Gringotts to be seen by the mind healers there, and while they had successfully healed her of the effects of the compulsions and possession that forced her to release the basilisk, what they found was very disturbing. For a start, Lockhart's intentions when he tried to coerce her into delivering the enchanted diary to Susan Bones were extremely questionable, the memories the healers took from Penny supported her belief that he was fully intending to seduce his thirteen year old student into having sexual relations with him, so that would be added to the charges of attempted line theft of a Senior Noble and Most Ancient House if they could prove their suspicions that Lockhart knew that the diary was essentially cursed to trap Countess Bones, Head of the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Bones into marriage to whoever was supposed to have the other diary.

An even bigger problem though was the fact that the mind healers had uncovered the fact that Penny had been raped by an older student at the beginning of the school year and then healed and obliviated to cover up the rape. What they had managed to recover of her memories of the event appeared to indicate that it was a prefect who raped her, presumably with his partner covering for him. It had to have been a teacher who performed the healing and obliviation as no ordinary student could have managed to cover up what had been done to her that well…. and their prime suspect on that front was Horace Slughorn.

Another question that was disturbing them was whether the rapist or the one who covered it up had told Lockhart about the rape and that had influenced his choice to attempt to seduce an innocent thirteen year old girl… When they picked up Lockhart he was going to be leaking Veritaserum out his ears until he'd told them _everything_ he knew about this _and_ the diary, because there had been something about that diary which compelled Penny to use it…. and if their suspicions about Slughorn were confirmed he'd be joining Lockhart.

Ragnok told them that Penny's parents were currently with her at Gringotts and Amelia was going to be meeting with them tomorrow to get authorisation to go after everyone involved in her attack. Minerva and Filius (as Hogwarts' Deputy Headmistress and Penny's House Master) insisted on being in that meeting and Ragnok just nodded, saying that they'd been planning on that.

Harry discussed making an offer to protect Penny's reputation and position in the Wizarding world with Hermione and Luna over their links and with their wholehearted agreement, told Ragnok that he wanted to get Ted Tonks in to discuss a couple of things to help protect Penny with the Clearwaters. Ragnok and Lily could tell from the approving smiles the older women were giving Harry at that what he was suggesting _would_ be good for Penny, but he had to spell it out for them.

"Well the first part is mainly using the Noble House biases that rule this world. I want to try and get the Clearwaters to accept the Gaunts' Most Ancient Wizard Family title and the Riddles' Baronetcy, along with Riddle Manor and the Gaunt shack in Little Haggleton, as that will elevate their family to a Most Ancient Minor House and raise their status quite a bit in the eyes of the Pure Bloods. More importantly, their being a Most Ancient House will allow us to use the Druid Laws to add attempted line theft to the charges when we go after the ones involved in Penny's rape, and line theft is something the Noble Houses take very seriously. I'm sure that magic will allow the titles to be transferred to them because Penny was very much Riddle's victim."

"But the bigger issue is… You know that witches must be magically verified to be virgins for marriages to be magically accepted in the Wizarding world?" They both nodded angrily.

"And you must know if it was ever discovered that any girl _wasn't_ a virgin when she was married, the harridans of Wizarding society would absolutely crucify her, making sure that _everyone_ heard about it and that she was publicly branded a harlot?"

Lily growled at that, but she nodded tersely, none of them liked any of this but they knew that it was how Wizarding society still worked.

"It's common knowledge that while wizards can have several wives in the wizarding world, a witch can only be married to one wizard at a time, but there _is_ a loophole in that rule which states that a witch who is in line for her own houses _can_ in fact be betrothed to more than one wizard up until she actually gets married to one of them. For that reason, Uncle Ted used a little known exception to the traditional marriage laws in our betrothal contracts to protect the girls against anyone trying to force a marriage for their houses, female line continuation contracts."

"These were created a couple of hundred years ago during the bloodiest of the so called Goblin Rebellions to supposedly try and prevent families dying out when there were no male heirs left to continue the name. The point is, female line continuation contracts don't have to be permanent like the marriage contracts are meant to be because while they're treated like any other betrothal contract at the start, under the line continuation contracts the witch becomes the wizard's consort, rather than his wife. Once she has borne an heir for her family, or if she is unable to bear an heir with that wizard for some reason, the line continuation contract can be terminated, leaving her free to get married and bear heirs for her husband's family with no stigma attached to her not being a virgin."

"Female line continuation contracts are usually arranged with the same wizard the witch marries, which is what we've done with our betrothal contracts, but it _is_ allowable for them to be arranged with another wizard if that's deemed to be necessary for some reason. Penny's mother was the last member of the Ancient Wizard Family of Powell but after she married Penny's father, who is Muggle Born, they went through the process to have the family name formally changed to Clearwater to keep it going. If they accept my offer of the Gaunt and Riddle titles, that means that Penny could be legitimately entered into a female line continuation contract to prevent what will be the Most Ancient Minor Wizard House of Clearwater dying out. There _is_ a requirement for the union to be consummated at some point for it to be accepted as legitimate, but if Penny and her parents wish to do this to protect Penny's name and reputation I will do everything I can when that time comes to minimise any trauma associated with it for her…."

That had his mother in tears and squeezing the life out of him. "I know you will sweetheart, that's what makes you and your wonderful girls so incredible, the fact that you're prepared to do something like this for Penny and the girls are supporting you in doing it."

Minerva was furious when they watched the memories that had been recovered from Penny of her rape, because she identified the rapist as her Gryffindor Seventh Year male Prefect, and saw her female seventh Year prefect in the background, which confirmed what they'd suspected when Ragnok told them what had been recovered from Penny. She went back to Hogwarts and called the two to her office, where they were shocked to find that they were immediately whisked off to Gringotts to be questioned under Veritaserum, being held in Clan Gringott's secure cells overnight.

Early the next morning, Harry went to Gringotts with Ted, Hermione, Luna and Susan and they sat down to discuss Harry's proposals. Natalie Clearwater had been taught enough about the old ways to see the protection that the titles being offered would give them and her husband Robert was no fool, so when he saw her look of hope he agreed straight away and Harry magically transferred the titles then and there. Natalie also cottoned onto how Harry's other offer could protect Penny quite quickly, but it took a bit of discussion before Penny got her head around it and agreed, and quite a bit more for Robert to accept that allowing his little girl to go through with this before she got married would be in her best interests.

As soon as the titles were magically transferred and Penny officially became Heiress to the Most Ancient Minor Wizard House of Clearwater, Amelia took a squad of DMLE Patrol Officers to Hogwarts to arrest Gilderoy Lockhart and Horace Slughorn on charges of attempted line theft of Most Ancient Houses among other things. Dumbledore of course tried to stop them, but he quickly shut up and sat down when Amelia threatened formally charging him with interfering with official Department of Magical Law Enforcement investigations.

The Gryffindors who had asked Minerva what happened to the Seventh Year prefects and were told to keep it quiet, but they were assisting the DMLE with some inquiries, started wondering whether they were going to see their dorm mates again as they watched two of their teachers being dragged out of the Great Hall. Some of the braver or more dutiful students owled their parents about what was going on at Hogwarts, so their parents were less surprised than others when an Emergency Wizengamot Session was called that afternoon.

* * *

As Griselda and Tiberius took their places at the Chief Witch/Warlocks bench with Elphias Doge, they smiled to themselves about how many Wizengamot members were missing after last night, because the Death Eaters who had slipped through the cracks before had either died with Riddle, or were in a bad way in St Mungo's. Very few of them had Heirs who would be able to claim their titles and votes any time soon, so the Pure-Bloods would be considerably weaker in the Wizengamot for a while.

They were rather less pleased to see Albus Dumbledore bustle in in his usual flamboyant robes, ignoring the dress standards of the Wizengamot as he always had, and head for the Noble House members' benches. Griselda signalled for Tiberius to handle the idiot, because she didn't think that she'd be able to stay civil, he nodded and called out. "Mister Dumbledore, what are you doing here?"

Dumbledore drew himself up to his full and admittedly impressive height to respond. "That is _Lord_ Dumbledore Lord Ogden, as you yourself have stated on numerous occasions, members of the Wizengamot should be addressed by their proper titles!"

Tiberius and Griselda looked at each other, but neither of them could work out what the old fool was going on about, so Tiberius turned back to Dumbledore. "Forgive me _Lord_ Dumbledore, I was not aware that you had been elevated to a Noble title. May I ask how this came about, and when?"

"That is alright Tiberius, it was just over a month ago that my good friend Baron Nicolas Flamel died and passed his titles on to me, so it is quite understandable that you may not have been informed of it yet."

This made Tiberius give Griselda an evil smile of anticipation, and he caught a similar smile on the Clerk of the Court's face. The Heads of the Fawcett Family had been the Wizengamot's Clerks of the Court for centuries and _no-one_ knew more about the ins and outs of the British Magical Houses and Families than them, and they knew more about the British Magical Laws than the vast majority in the Wizengamot too for that matter as they served as the Wizengamot's knowledge repository. Eugene had been one of Magical Britain's leading solicitors before he became Clerk of the Court and other sons and daughters of the Fawcett family still were, which was part of the reason that Rhys, Fawcett, Fleamont and Tonks was the pre-eminent legal firm in Magical Britain. The proper form of address for Eugene Fawcett was actually _Sir_ Eugene, because the title of Head of the Ancient Minor Wizard House of Fawcett had been passed on to him when he took over the position of Clerk of the Court from his father. Lady Marchbanks, Lord Ogden and Doge and most of the other Acting Chief Witches and Warlocks had always made a point of addressing him properly in private but at his instigation held to the convention of using 'Mister Fawcett' publicly, so the fact that Dumbledore had _never_ acknowledged his title in all the time he'd been Chief Warlock _and_ believed that he would have missed any change of this nature was quite insulting.

Tiberius waved his hand to the Stone of Truth. "I'm sorry, I had not heard of Baron Flamel's passing. In that case we must meet the Wizengamot's requirements to have you accepted by the Magic of the Wizengamot, please identify yourself with The Stone."

"I hardly think that is necessary after all my years of service to the Wizengamot Tiberius…."

"I will remind you that it is required that _every_ member of the Wizengamot be accepted by the Magic of the Wizengamot before they take part in proceedings, and please address me as Chief Warlock when I am officially sitting in that capacity! Please identify yourself to the Magic of the Wizengamot."

Dumbledore obviously wanted to say something about that, but he gave an angry huff and flounced over to the Stone of Truth. The Stone's voice rang out when he placed his hands on it. "Albus Percival Dumbledore, Head of the Wizard Family of Dumbledore, not a member of the Wizengamot."

Tiberius looked like the cat that ate the canary now. "Oh dear, it would appear that you were mistaken Mister Dumbledore. Sir Eugene, are you able to shed any light on this matter? If Mister Dumbledore did not inherit Baron Flamel's titles when he died, who did?"

Once again, Eugene matched his smile. "Most certainly My Lord Chief Warlock. In the first place, you will be happy to hear that Baron Flamel has _not_ died and he remains Comte Flamel in France, he has merely abdicated his British titles to his Heir."

Dumbledore exploded. "That it is not true! _I_ am his Heir so they should have come to me!"

Tiberius took over again because he wanted to make Dumbledore's supporters come after him if they came after anyone for this as his house was more powerful than Eugene's. "Apparently not Mister Dumbledore. Were you in fact officially notified of Baron Flamel's death by anyone? Did you make any attempt to check with Baron… sorry, _Comte_ Flamel's family when you heard of his passing?"

"There was no way of contacting the Flamels except through their Steward and he has disappeared! I was magically notified of their deaths over a month ago but I have been blocked from taking possession of their estates…. I demand to know who has stolen the Flamel inheritance that is rightfully mine!"

The carrying voice that spoke from the top tier of the Wizengamot benches chilled his blood. "_Stolen_, Dumbledore? You _dare_ to publicly call me a thief without a shred of proof?"

Dumbledore found himself unable to speak as he watched Harry Potter gracefully descend to the floor of the chamber. Harry surreptitiously uncovered the Flamel rings and placed that hand on the Stone of Truth so its voice rang out. "Baron Henry James Flamel, Head of the British Junior Noble and Ancient Wizard House of Flamel and Baron Henri James Flamel, Heir to Comte Nicolas Flamel, Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Flamel in France."

"As you have heard, I have been magically accepted as Heir to the French Flamel titles and Comte Flamel has decided to abdicate from his British titles so that they came to me. Now that we have _proof_ of your lies and insults Mister Dumbledore, I must decide what to do to you…."

He was cut off by Tiberius' voice from the Chief Witch/Warlocks' bench. "I hesitate to interfere with a matter of honour Duke Potter, but is this really the time or place for this?"

Harry bowed to the bench. "My apologies My Lord Chief Warlock, you are correct, if you will just bear with me for a little longer I will attempt to defer the matter..." He turned back to Dumbledore. "Albus Percival Dumbledore! I, Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, challenge you to a duel of honour for your false accusations and insults to my honour under the terms of the Druid Laws! Will you face me or will you concede and agree to pay whatever compensation I deem appropriate?"

"What? You can't do that! Duels have been illegal for over a century!"

"As someone who held the Chief Warlock's position for over forty five years, you should know that the Druid Laws protect the Noble and Ancient and above Houses' right to resolve certain matters in honour duels Mister Dumbledore…. Answer me! Will you face me or publicly admit your lack of honour and pay compensation of my choice?"

"I refuse to accept that you have any legal right to force me to duel with you!"

Harry nodded and said "Very Well." then turned to the Clerk of the Court. "Sir Eugene, may I ask a boon of you Sir?"

Eugene nodded, smiling inside as he had a good idea of where this was going. "If I can be of service, I will Duke Potter."

"Thank you, my request is this... Would you be willing to formally bear witness to the fact that the false accusations and insults made to me by Albus Percival Dumbledore, Head of the Wizard Family of Dumbledore, are sufficient to justify me challenging him to an honour duel under the terms of Druid Law, and furthermore that he has refused to accept my challenge and therefore is legally required to forfeit whatever compensation I see fit to call for to satisfy the insult to my honour?"

Eugene bowed to him. "I am indeed willing to formally bear witness to the fact that the false accusations and insults made to you by Albus Percival Dumbledore are sufficient justification for you to challenge him to an honour duel under the terms of Druid Law, and that he has publicly refused to accept your challenge and is therefore legally required to forfeit to you whatever compensation you see fit to require to satisfy the insult to your honour Duke Potter Peverell."

There was a flash as the magic of the chamber accepted this ruling, which sparked a considerable amount of whispering and chatter because most of the people in the chamber had never heard of the old laws that ruled matters of this nature, let alone been present for the only time they had been publicly invoked in the last century, right there in the chamber in the session where Sirius had called out Delores Umbridge and Lucius Malfoy.

Dumbledore's knees were shaking as he began to register what was happening, but it wasn't over yet as Harry spoke again.

"I will be brief so that we can proceed with the more important matters we have been called here to address…. Albus Percival Dumbledore! I, Duke Henry James Potter Peverell, hereby call on you to forfeit your position as Head of the Wizard Family of Dumbledore and all vaults you control to me, and as the new Head of the Wizard Family of Dumbledore I cast you out of the Wizard Family of Dumbledore! You are no longer Albus Percival Dumbledore, from this moment you will assume your mother's maiden name and be known as Albus Percival _Jones_!"

There was another flash as the magic of the chamber accepted his decree and Albus _Jones_ collapsed as he lost the Dumbledore Family Mind Magic that he'd been jealously hoarding to himself ever since he became Head of the Family in the early Eighteen Nineties. At the Hogs Head pub in Hogsmeade, Albus' brother Aberforth felt a change in the Dumbledore Family Magic wash over him, but there was no change to what little family magic he had access to so he thought that he'd imagined it until Harry Potter came to visit him the next day.

Tiberius waved for the Officers of the Court to remove Mr… Jones as Harry bowed to the Chief Witch/Warlocks' bench and apologised for delaying the proceedings they had been called there to address. All in all, Albus Dumbledore, or rather Albus Jones as he now was, would have been better off staying in bed that day.


End file.
